Timur
the founder of the Timurid Empire (1370–1405)
Timur (1320s – 17/18 February 1405), also known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror, first ruler of the Timurid dynasty, and the founder of the Timurid Empire, which ruled over modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia. He was undefeated in battle and is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal and deadly. Timur is also considered a great patron of the arts, for he interacted with scholars and poets such as ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru. His reign led to the Timurid Renaissance.
Born into the Turkicized Mongol confederation of the Barlas in Transoxiana (now in Uzbekistan) in the 1320s, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370 and from there he led a series of military campaigns defeating the Khans of the Golden Horde, the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, as well as the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent, thus becoming the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world. These conquests led to the creation of the Timurid Empire, which fragmented shortly after his death. He spoke several languages, including the Karluk Turkic language Chagatai (an ancestor of modern Uzbek and Uyghur), as well as Classical Mongolian and New Persian, which he used for diplomatic correspondence.
Timur was the last of the major nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, and his empire set the stage for the rise of the more organized and lasting Muslim gunpowder empires of the 16th and 17th centuries. Timur was of Mongol descent, and, while probably not a direct descendant on either side, he shared a common ancestor with Genghis Khan on his father's side, though some authors have suggested his mother may have been a descendant of the Khan. He clearly sought to revive the legacy of Genghis Khan and saw himself as the restorer of the Mongol Empire.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Timur” is the founder of the Timurid Empire (1370–1405). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Timur, founder and Timurid, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8462. VIAF identifies the subject as 63984707. The Library of Congress control number is n50015000. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1405 and 1370.
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This entry incorporates text from “Timur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.