"A few hours in Tashkent" a Tashkent Travel Page by ByeByeBayan

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Timur, Tamerlan, Tamerlane...

In Amir Timur Square

Writing about Central Asia without mentioning the figure of Timur would be incomplete. First I will write a few words about the statue itself, then I will briefly summarize who he was and what he did.

President Islam Karimov could have chosen the Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi (1441-1501) or Timur's grandson Ulug Beg (1394-1449) as the national hero, but he prefered to push forward the figure of Timur. That's probably the reason why this equestrian statue of him is so imposing: since the independance of Uzbekistan, President Karimov has been glorifying the national values through the one who was regarded by the Soviets as a bloodthirsty monster.
To serve the same purpose, the Uzbek language is nowadays taking precedence over Russian. By the way, that situation is a problem for the Russian people who settled in Uzbekistan without… learning the language. The Soviets had imposed the cyrillic alphabet, now it's the Latin one that is used. Before the Soviet era, the Arabic one was used.
Originally, there was in this place a statue of General Kaufmann, the first Russian Governor-General of Turkestan. Then it was a bust of Lenin, then a statue of Stalin, replaced after the Stalinisation by one of Karl Marx.

Timur was born on April 8th 1336 in the town of Kesh, better known as Chakhrizabz, which is situated 90 km South of Samarkand. He was a Turkish-Mongol, and claimed to be a descendant of Genghis Khan. His father Teragai was the head of the modest nomadic clan of Barlas wandering in the North of Aral Sea. In brief, Timur was a muslim from Chagatay Ulus, descendant from a Turkish-speaking group, his culture was Persian and he administered the Mongolian law called Yassa.
Timur started his career tending to flocks. At the age of 14, he started working as a mercenary for the account of the many chiefs fighting for the power in Transoxiana. Then he became himself the leader of a group of adventurers. When mentioning that time, he would often proudly repeat this sentence : “If a poor sheep-stealer like me became the biggest sovereign of Asia, that’s because he is God’s favourite.”
At the age of 27, he had his right leg wounded and became lame in that leg. It’s after that infirmity that the Persian word “lang” for “the lame man” was added to his name. The Persians nicknamed him Timur Lang, his Turkish enemies Aksak Timur, “the lame Timur”. He is now known as Tamerlan in French, Tamerlane or Tamburlaine in English. In spite of his physical disability, thousands of men would follow him and be obedient to the tireless horseman and redoutable fightman he remained.

In the year 1370, at the age of 34, he proclaimed himself Emir, head of the Transoxiana’s tribes, and made public his wish of having Samarkand, devastated by Genghis Khan 150 years earlier, as his chief town. He made it the economical and cultural capital of Orient. In the year 1380, he started his project of domination upon Central Asia, but also upon the places now called Iraq and Azerbaijan (1386), Iran (sacking of Shiraz and Isfahan in 1387), Georgia...

Two powerful enemies were threatening Timur’s empire : in the West, the Ottoman Turkey, allied to Syria and Baghdad ; in the North the Golden Horde, also known as Kipchak Khanate, ruled by a descendant of Genghis Khan, Toktamish Khan. He was one of the most formidable of Timur's opponents, the two of them having quarrelled over the possession of Transoxiana for 6 years. Toktamish was finally defeated in 1395.

Timur spent the year 1397 in Samarkand. At that time, he had taken the rest of Mesopotamia and Caspian provinces to the banks of the Ural and the Volga.

In 1398, when Timur was more than 60 years of age, he began his expedition into India, helped by his grandsons Pir Mahommed and Mahommed Sultan. It is said that the sack of Delhi and the massacre was not Timur’s intent, but that his men could simply not be controlled in arriving inside the city gates.

In April 1399, Timur was back in Samarkand and his next campaign led him among the Mameluks and the Ottoman Bayezid I Yildirim (the Lightning). Aleppo and Damascus were captured in the year 1400. Having got rid of the Sultan's allieds, Timur rushed upon Bayezid. In July 1402, the Ottoman conqueror was defeated at the Battle of Angora near Ankara, and imprisonned. The invasion of Oriental Europe by the Ottomans was consequently stopped, and the capture of Constantinople delayed for some 50 years .
This was Timur’s last campaign. Another one was projected against China in 1405, but the warrior was attacked by fever and plague when encamping on the farther side of the Syr-Daria and died at Atrar (Otrar) in January or February 1405. He was 69 of age.

It need scarcely be added that domination was followed by... devastation ! Any coveted place had to give itself up immediately. If not, all it’s defenders would be slaughtered or reduced to slavery. If a conquered place rebelled, it would be destroyed together with its inhabitants. Piling up the heads, towers would be erected. In Baghdad, for instance, he is said to have erected 120 pyramids, each one made of 750 heads, and in Isfahan, 45 towers made of 1000 or 2000 heads each. However, the best erudites, artists, writers, architects and religious were not put to death but sent to Samarkand. Timur’s huge cosmopolitan armies of devoted men were ready to kill and die for their merciless bloody chief, who was always sharing his soldiers’ rough life, everyone getting his part of the booty whatever his rank, wealth and kinship.

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The entrance of the Barak-Khan Madrassah

In the old part of Tashkent, Hazrati Imam

The Barak-Khan medresse and the mosque in front of it are located in Hazrati Imam, in the old part of the city. The entrance of the medresse is beautifully decorated with blue-tiled mosaic along with Koranic inscriptions. It’s also interesting to observe how the brick was arranged in «trompe l’oeil» techniques, on top of the portal arch. Inside, in the courtyard, you can see roses and white mullberry trees.
The Barak-Khan medresse has been built by stages : first, it was a centric mausoleum ; then in 1530 it was a large mausoleum-khanaka with a double dome on top, devoted to the Shaybanid Tashkent ruler Suyunidj-khan ; the third step consisted in the conversion of this complex into a medresse. This last step took place in the middle of 16th century under Barak-khan.
Who was Barak-Khan, that Timur’s descendant ruling Tashkent for the account of the Shaybanids, and... who were those Shaybanids?
Muhammad Shaybani (1451-1510), the founder of Shaybanid dynasty, was a brilliant warrior and also a poet. He had set up his empire in Central Asia in 1503. His uncle Suyunidj-khan, who was Ulugbek’s grandson, became the ruler of Tashkent. Barak-khan (Nauruz-Akhmed) was Suyunidj-khan’s son. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Shaybanid Empire was including almost all the former states of the Timurid Empire. Pir Muhammad will be the last ruler of the dynasty, in the end of the 16th century. The Ashtarkhanids will succeed the Shaybanids and establish the Bukhara Emirate.
The Barak-Khan medresse is now the administrative centre of the Mufti of Uzbekistan. Let me come back later for the mosque opposite the medresse.