Mongols / Timurids: Political History and Notable People (inc. Scholars)

1206 - 1368 - Mongolian Empire / Mongols (All Facts)

• 2nd Largest Empire by geographical territory in World History and largest contiguous empire in history

  • They created a vast empire which stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Danube River

  • The momentum of their invasions of Asia and Europe was such that there was a pervasive fear throughout those regions that they would not stop conquering until they reached the Atlantic Ocean

• They did not settle down and establish their own governments, for, their philosophy was that cities were sources of plunder, not places to be lived

  • This was the fact despite their conquest of many cities and great stretches of land conquered

  • They ruled entire countries through their local aristocracies, which became the namesake’s vassals

  • They thus organized militaristically only, living and dying on the saddle

• They emerged out of the Gobi Desert

• They rode four times faster than the heavy cavalry of the Europeans

1206 - 1227 - Genghis Khan (All Facts)

• First Khan and Founder of the Mongolian Empire

• He and the Mongols emerged from the Gobi Desert

• He unified the various feuding Mongol tribes into one federation

• He led his unwashed horsemen, who were virtually invincible as light cavalry

  • For wherever he and the Mongols passed, they left nothing but death and destruction

  • His typical strategy consisted of sweeping cavalry moves combined with the cunning use of using his enemy’s fearful neighbors

  • They rampaged across Asia and Europe

• He and the Mongols, despite their conquest of many cities and great stretches of land conquered, did not settle down and establish their own governments, for, his and the Mongol philosophy was that cities were sources of plunder, not places to be lived

  • They organized militaristically only, living and dying on the saddle

• He

  • invaded

    • China

    • Persia

    • Southern Russia

  • conquered

    • Turkestan

    • Transoxiana

    • Afghanistan

    • Beijing

      • He left the remainder of his conquest of Jin-controlled Beijing to his captain Muqali

    • the Tartars

    • the Russians, at the Kalka River after his expedition through Persia

  • occupied

    • Kashgar

    • The Tarim Basin

    • Korea, which acknowledged under his reign its vassal status

• He died in his camp in the cool of the foothills of the Linbanshan mountains while his army besieged the Tangut King Li Xian in his capital of Ningxia

  • He had never fully recovered after falling from his horse while hunting one year, knowing death was upon him since that incident

  • As a result, he urged his officers to capture Ningxia quickly and “warned by a dream” summoned two of his three surviving sons, Ogodei and Toluy, who had been campaigning nearby

  • He had dismissed his officers from his yurt where he lay in barbaric splendor

  • In great pain, on his deathbed, he outlined to his sons, his plan of action for his last campaign against the Jin Emperor of China, who still had not been defeated upon his death

  • All those who were unfortunate to meet his cortege on the long road back to Karakorum were killed

1170 - 1223 - Muqali (All Facts)

• Mongol General under Genghis Khan

  • He was a “Jalair”

• He led the Siege of Beijing during the Mongol-Jin War and oversaw the city’s destruction

1182 - 1225 - Jochi (All Facts)

• Mongol Prince

  • He was the oldest son of Genghis Khan

  • He became the ruler of the most westerly part of the Mongol empire, in the Ural Mountains

1227 - 1502 - Golden Horde (All Facts)

• At its territorial peak, it ran from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea and from Kiev to the Ural Mountains

• Its sources of wealth were

  • Loot

  • Russian taxation

  • Trade with the Mameluke Egyptians via Italian middlemen

  • Control of trade routes from Europe across Asia into China, similar to those followed by Marco Polo

• By 1295, they rejected the entire Mongol Empire Khan’s authority

• It collapsed around the 1420s, due to

  • Semi-independent Turkish nomads, loyal to clan chiefs, who roamed the steppes and disintegrated the namesake’s power slowly over time

  • Russia, which emerged with his own political identity again, defending itself from the namesake’s power in that region

  • A century of abrasive border disputes in Azerbaijan and Transcaucasia with the Ilkhanate

• It split into three autonomous khanates

1227 - 1255 - Batu Khan (All Facts)

• First Khan and Founder of the Golden Horde, a subkhanate of the Mongolian Empire

  • He was a grandson of Genghis Khan and son of Jochi

  • Prior to his reign, the Mongolian Empire’s western operations were halted after Genghis Khan’s death, but Tartar chieftains gathered at Karakorum and agreed to ride under the namesake’s command

• During his reign, the Mongols overran Eastern Europe, in which they

  • Crossed the Volga River, and, entering through the Caucasus Mountains; they invaded, conquered, and ended the already-fragmented Kievan Rus, taking its principalities of Vladimir, Yaroslavl, and Rostov as well as riding north to sack Moscow

  • The Golden Horde replaced the Kievan Rus and was a sub-khanate of the greater Mongolian Empire

  • Covered 400 miles of territory from the Vistula River to Germany in just under a month

  • Did not conquer Novgorod only because of a flood that forced them to turn away

• He pillaged eastern Europe on a scale that earned his army the name “the Golden Horde,” the entity of which he founded and ruled over

  • While legends proliferated at the time about the Mongols, most of his army was in fact Turkish

• He and his forces defeated the Rus and ended the Kievan Rus in the Siege of Kiev during their Invasion of the Kievan Rus

  • He made Alexander Nevsky a vassal of the Mongolian Empire

• He and his forces defeated the Polish and Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Legnica during their First Invasion of Poland

• He and his forces defeated the King Bela IV and the Hungarians in the Battle of Mohi during their First Invasion of Hungary

  • However, upon the death of Ogodei Khan, he and his forces withdrew from Hungary and Dalmatia, to cross the Carpathian Mountains, and return to the lower Volga River

• He and his forces annexed the Jin Empire in China

1229 - 1241 - Ogodei Khan (All Facts)

• 2nd Khan of the Mongol Empire

  • He was a son of Genghis Khan

• His death halted the further Mongol advance into Europe, as warlords competed for the Mongolian throne

1246 - 1248 - Guyuk Khan (All Facts)

• 3rd Khan of the Mongol Empire

  • He was a grandson of Genghis Khan and the oldest son of his predecessor

• He welcomed into his court Giovanni da Pian del Carpine of Italy, sent to him by Pope Innocent IV

  • He was sent to the city of Karakorum for the namesake’s inauguration as great khan

  • As a result of their stay, the namesake was keen to contact Pope Innocent IV and sent Carpine back with a letter that was given to the Pope

1251 - 1259 - Mongke Khan (All Facts)

• 4th Khan of the Mongol Empire

  • He was the first from the line of Toluy, Genghis Khan’s other son who did not inherit Genghis Khan’s initial will

• During his reign,

  • He concluded an anti-Muslim alliance with William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar sent to the namesake by King Louis IX of France

1200 - 1260 - Kitbuqa (All Facts)

• Mongolian General under Hulegu Khan

• He and his forces were defeated by Baybars and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Battle of Ain Jalut

  • He was last seen riding east, pursued by his bodyguard

1256 - 1335 - Ilkhanate (All Facts)

• Founded by Hulegu Khan

1256 - 1265 - Hulegu Khan (All Facts)

• First Khan and Founder of the Ilkhanate, a subkhanate of the Mongolian Empire

  • He was a grandson of Genghis Khan, from the line of Toluy, Genghis Khan’s other son who did not inherit Genghis Khan’s initial will

  • He was the brother of Mongke Khan

  • This subkhanate essentially covered Persia, and became a Mongolian Dynasty of Persia

• He and his forces defeated Al-Mustasim and the Abbasid Caliphate in the Siege of Baghdad, thus ending the Abbasid Caliphate and so-called “Islamic Golden Age;” having obliterated the city and slaughtered its people

  • He had traversed the Oxus River on New Years Day, taking an eventful trip across southern Asia which culminated in this event

• He and his forces besieged Damascus, where Christian underdogs foolishly cheered and converted a mosque into a church

• He and his forces besieged Aleppo

• He and his forces were defeated by Baybars and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Battle of Ain Jalut, which kept the Mongols from conquering Egypt and Palestine

  • This came from a fatal error he made, when, responding to word of Mongke Kahn’s death, withdrew to Azerbaijan many of his men and still sent the rest he had to crush the Mamelukes, only for the remaining force to be outnumbered and crushed by Baybars and his men

  • This had the effect of smashing the mystique of Mongol invincibility

1266 - 1280 - Mongke Temur / Mengu Timur (All Facts)

• Khan of the Golden Horde

• His death was not expected to impede Mongol conquest over central Europe

1260 - 1294 - Kublai Khan (All Facts)

• 5th and Final Khan of the Mongol Empire

  • He was the First Emperor and Founder of the Yuan Dynasty of China

    • He ruled from a glittering court in Beijing

    • He hunted like his father

  • However, his power was mostly limited to the Yuan Dynasty of China, as the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde, two of the other subkhanates of the Mongolian Empire, were ruled by others by the time of his reign

  • Unlike his grandfather Genghis Khan, he was an urban man rather than a horseman of the steppes

  • He

    • had shown an inclination for scholarship and the arts

    • knew that commerce could bring as much profit as pillage

    • had an entourage that included foreign scholars and experts of many races and religions

    • was nonetheless a Mongol, who, like his forefathers, ruthlessly waged war to achieve his ends

  • His succession to his dead brother had been fiercely contested by his other brother and cousins Khaidu and Nayan, both of whom challenged his authority

    • To consolidate his authority, he

      • had Nayan captured and smothered to death in a rolled-up carpet

      • waged war against Khaidu for many years

• He and his forces conquered the Song Dynasty of southern China, replacing it with his Yuan Dynasty, in which he brought all of China under Mongol rule

  • He set about the destruction of the Song Dynasty with cunning rather than warfare, in which he sent sent one of his envoys / advisors named Hao Ching to the Song court to ostensibly discuss a peaceful settlement between the Mongols and Song, offering the Song a bargain that if they would acknowledge his reign as the “Son of Heaven” (Mandate of Heaven) over all China, then the namesake would allow them a measure of self-rule and the opportunity to benefit from the prosperity which would stem from a tolerant suzerainty of Mongol overlords

    • Hao Ching further embellished this offer by painting a picture of the namesake as a Chinese-style emperor, with Confucian advisers, governing in a civilized fashion

    • Hao Ching also pointed out that any military resistance would be useless, for nothing could stand against the Mongol army which at the time was as skilled in siege warfare as it was in the field

    • In response, the Song Dynasty refused to acknowledge the namesake’s claim to the Mandate of Heaven, and they had Hao Ching arrested

    • In response, however, the namesake maintained his policy of conciliation and sent two more of his envoys / advisors to try and persuade the Song

• His First invasion of Japan failed due to the “Kamikaze”

• His Second invasion of Japan also failed

• He expedition to attack Java failed miserably

• He had met with Marco Polo in Dadu (modern-day Beijing) in China

  • He entrusted Polo and his men to give Pope Nicholas III a message from him

  • He had hired experts in siege warfare from Baghdad and an international group of advisors and military technicians to discussion with Polo and his men

  • Polo became a favorite of the namesake Mongol emperor’s stately capital at Cambuluc

  • He was moved by Polo’s wonder at the glories of the capital he had built at Cambuluc

  • He employed Polo and his men on a number of diplomatic missions, having travelled to India and Persia to conduct his business

• He eventually became more Chinese than Mongolian as he adopted from the Chinese certain methods of administration for the Mongolian Empire, including adopting Chinese systems of

  • roads

  • postal systems

  • census-taking

  • markets

  • paper money (“flying cash”)

• He lived at his marble pleasure palace in the city of Shangdu, where it was said that he could drink “the milk of paradise” there

  • He also had a tent that was lined with ermine and sable and so beautifully quilted that not a breath of wind or drop of rain could disturb his comfort

• He died a disappointed man despite all of his achievements

  • The deaths of his favorite son Zehnjin and his beloved wife Chabi - both of whom made important decisions for him as he grew older - turned him into a recluse; having eaten and drank to excess and eventually becoming obese

• Upon his death, the Mongolian Empire became divided and split apart into three or more subkhanates

• After his reign, the Khans of the entire Mongolian Empire had no more authority as it was rejected by the Golden Horde and other subkhanates developed thereafter

1295 - 1304 - Ghazan (All Facts)

• 7th Khan of the Ilkhanate and Subkhan (Ilkhan) of the Mongolian Empire

  • When he was a young prince in Kurasan, he was influenced by Nawruz, a powerful Mongol emir who persuaded him to convert to Islam

  • He was Muslim and converted his emirs to Islam

  • His conversion to Islam helped bridge the gap between the Mongol rulers and their Muslim-Persian subjects

• His reign proved that the Mongols were capable of enlightened rule

• He was remembered for his humanity towards his Persian subjects

• During his reign,

  • He banished all Buddhists from living in the land

  • He made Jews and Christians second-class citizens

  • He regulated the methods of taxation, determined not to tax the peasants to death

  • He had all property registered for assessment

  • He had the postal courier system improved and roads made safer

  • He had introduced coinage and standardized weights and measures

• During his reign,

  • He fought against the Mamelukes of Egypt with the help of Christian Europe

  • He put down an invasion from the Chaghatai Khanate of Central Asia

1294 - 1307 - Temur Khan (All Facts)

• 6th Khan of the Mongol Empire

1304 - 1316 - Oljaitu (All Facts)

• 8th Khan of the Ilkhanate

  • He was the brother of his predecessor

• He conquered the province of Gilan, on the Caspian coast, the land significant expansion of the Mongol Empire

• He left a magnificent memorial in his mausoleum at Sultaniyya, with its remarkable double-skinned dome

1316 - 1335 - Abu Sa’id (All Facts)

• 9th Khan of the Ilkhanate

  • He was only 11 years old when he came to the throne and effective rule was in the hands of the leading emir at the time, Chopan

  • During his rule, there was a fierce rivalry between the Chopanids and the Jalayirids of Mesopotamia, which erupted again following the namesake’s death and led to the disintegration of the Ilkhanate

• His regent Chopan and him made peace with the Mamelukes

• He eventually overthrew his regent Chopan and took full power for himself

• Upon taking power for himself, the remainder of his reign was peaceful but the Ilkhanate still disintegrated due to the warring Chopanid and Jalayirid factions

• After his death, many of his successors claimed to be distant descendants of Genghis Khan only to claim the throne in vein and rule it for short periods

1313 - 1341 - Ozbeg Khan (All Facts)

• Khan of the Golden Horde

• He brought Mongol prosperity to its height

• He converted the Mongol Golden Horde to Islam

1325 - 1390 - Hafez Shirazi (All Facts)

• Persian Muslim Poet and Mystic

• He is regarded as the greatest master of the Persian “Ghazal,” a lyrical short poem characterized by mysticism, richness, and subtlety of imagery; he used complex lyrical imagery in this form

• His work frequently depicted themes of love and wine

• He died at Shiraz

1380 - 1395 - Tuqtamish (All Facts)

• Khan of the Golden Horde

  • He was put in charge of the Golden Horde by Tamerlane

• He recaptured Moscow and renewed the Tartar yoke

1370 - 1507 - Timurid Empire / Timurids (All Facts)

• Founded by Tamerlane

1370 - 1405 - Tamerlane (All Facts)

• First Amir and Founder of the Timurid Empire

  • Turkoman Chieftain

  • He was born in Turkestan into the Barlas tribe, a clan originating from the lands of Mongolia which had adopted the Islamic religion and the Turkish language

  • He was a huge man, with a massive head and a formidably high forehead, his skin fair under his beard

  • He was devoutly religious Sufi, his ethic responding only to physical courage

    • This was strange considered he took advice only from Sufi mystics, who saw God in living things

  • He had a chronic limp, some say he was born with it others say it was caused by a wound; but on bad days he could not ride but must be carried in a litter

  • He essentially replaced and occupied former Mongolian territory

  • He was one of many forces destabilizing the Near East at the time

  • He was a white-haired illiterate who impressed Ibn Khaldun with his wit

  • He was an even greater tactician than Genghis Khan

  • He made a cult of atrocious cruelty

  • He loved philosophy and chess

  • He was a lifelong nomad but who was, ironically, a patron of architecture

  • He was a collector, in which his empire’s capital, which he established at Samarkand, was full of elegant loot from Delhi

• He had a taste for other people’s heads, detached from their bodies, and an appetite for territory

  • He offered his adversaries a choice of prompt surrender or a bloodbath, with even a hint of resistance having provoked his fury

  • One time, he captured just one city and ordered that all 30,000 of its inhabitants, even civilians, be decapitated

  • He amused himself by arranging severed heads in great mounds, like melons in a marketplace

  • He created pyramids of severed human heads which served as signposts from the Great Wall of China to the borders of Anatolia of his power

• He created an empire that stretched from Tartary to India having defeated

  • Anatolians

  • Turks

  • Persians

  • Arabs

  • Mamelukes

  • Mongols

• He

  • led an army from Bokhara of Transoxiana, on a destructive raid on the Persian border town of Urgenj, which sent rumors of conquest rippling across the country from Merv in the north to Shiraz in the south

  • secured the boundaries of his Transoxianan homeland against the Mongol Golden Horde, whose genes he shares

• He and his forces

  • Defeated and absorbed the Golden Horde

  • Captured Isfahan and Shiraz, taking control over Persia and replacing the Ilkhanate

  • Attacked Armenia and Georgia

  • Destroyed Astrakhan

  • Crossed the Indus River, invaded India, and sacked Delhi, leading to the collapse and end of the Delhi Sultanate and in which he left behind pillars of skulls

  • Took Sivas from the Ottoman Empire and delayed the Ottoman advance westward into Europe

  • Ravaged Syria, seizing it and taking Aleppo, Damascus, and Baghdad (after initially failing to take Baghdad prior)

• He and his forces

  • Defeated Bayezid and the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara and took Bayezid prisoner where he died in captivity

    • He assembled an army of 20K men and a team of elephants to move the baggage of heads he had decapitated

    • By a remarkable bluff, he contrived to march into the heart of Anatolia and occupy a position behind his opponent and upstream, across the only water source in that desolate plain, which he diverted

    • He then captured Smyrna and reached the Bosporus Strait

    • His victory brought temporary disorder to the Ottoman Empire

• Upon his death, he wanted to conquer China, but never got the chance to do so

• He died of a fever and an “indiscreet use of iced water”

• He dealt deaths of excruciating pain to thousands of innocent people but died peacefully himself

• 85 years after his death, a mausoleum was erected in Samarkand in his honor

  • Some historians think it was built in the decade after Baghdad’s capture

  • Its tall domes on high drums and colorful glazed relief-tile decoration would be the inspiration for future Timurid architects

1447 - 1449 - Ulugh Beg (All Facts)

• Amir of the Timurid Empire

  • He succeeded his father, facing political chaos on his father’s deaths and having to fight for his inheritance to the throne

  • He was the grandson of Tamerlane

  • He succeeded in maintaining control of a part of the Timurid Empire

• He was better known as an astronomer than as a ruler or warrior

  • He worked in his observatory where his grandfather was buried in his black onyx tomb just outside the Empire’s capital at Samarkand

  • He built a telescope that sunk into the hillside to study the stars

  • He produced a volume of astronomical tables with the help of four other scholars

    • They were the first made since Ptolemy

    • They were remarkably accurate

  • He worked in observatories, which were the latest achievements in Islamic and Timurid science

• He was a patron of architecture and during his reign he had built the beautiful teaching colleges at Samarkand and Bokhara

• He was executed on a trumped-up legal charge at the instigation of his own son, Abd al-Latif

  • Latif revolted against, defeated, and killed him and his son Abd al-Aziz

  • His death was a great loss to science and the arts at the time

1449 - 1450 - Abdal Latif (All Facts)

• Amir of the Timurid Empire

• His decision to kill both his father and brother, even by Mongol standards, was seen as excessive and he did not last long on the Timurid throne

1453 - 1454 - Esen Taishi (All Facts)

• Mongol Khagan of the Northern Yuan Dynasty

• He and his forces defeated Wang Jin and his forces in the Tumu Crisis, killing Wang Jin and most of the experienced Chinese generals and proceeding to plunder Beijing

1465 - 1481 - Ahmed Khan bin Küchük / Khan Akhmat (All Facts)

• Khan of the Golden Horde

• He

  • launched a punitive expedition to collect the customary tribute from Ivan and Russia, demanding money from them

• He intended to join up with a simultaneous Lithuanian incursion, however the Lithuanians never arrived and there was no significant fighting on the banks of the Ugra River

  • Fed up with waiting, he decided to withdraw

  • On the way home, he was assassinated by one of his political opponents

• After his reign, Ivan and the Russians still had to buy off and repel Tartar invaders but no longer had to accept the patent from khans like the namesake

• Khan Ivak of Western Siberia hit his camp and killed him, allowing Muscovy in Russia to expand

• His attack on Moscow was not supported by his allies in Lithuania and he was defeated by Khan Ivak

1413 - 1482 - Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi (All Facts)

• Persian Timurid Muslim Scholar, Ambassador, and Traveler

• He once travelled to Vijayanagar, the capital of the Vijayanagar Empire

  • He was summoned to Vijayanagar by the kind while on a mission to Calicut

  • He was very impressed with his visit

1414 - 1492 - Jami (All Facts)

• Persian Poet and Sufi Mystic under the Timurid Empire

• He is notable for his work “Salaman u Absal”

• His death marked the end of the classic period of Persian-Sufi Poetry