Charles Melville Illustrating the history of Tamerlane

A kingly image

Charles Melville: “The career of Timur (or Tamerlane, c. 1335–1405 ) was marked by brutal and protracted military campaigns that led to the subjection (if not the pacification) of vast swathes of territory from Central Anatolia and Northern Syria in the West to Central Asia and Northern India in the East, embracing the Caucasus and the Iranian Plateau in the process. These expeditions and the slaughter they perpetrated were visited almost without exception against fellow Muslim rulers and their hapless subjects. Nevertheless, Timur was glorified with elevated titles and regarded as a role model for rulership not only within the Timurid dynasty that he founded but also by neighbouring and later regimes, such as the Ottomans in Turkey, the Mughals in India (who traced their descent from Timur) and the Safavids in Persia (16^th–17^th c.).

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