Tamerlane

Historian Peter Jackson considers it generally accepted that Timur was of "unimpeachable Mongol ancestry". Timurid histories, such as Yazdi's Zafarnama, Hafiz-i Abru's Zubdat at-tawarikh, and the Muiz al-Ansab, trace his paternal descent from Tumbinai Khan, a male-line ancestor of Genghis Khan. However, while Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh and the Secret History of the Mongols assign a common ancestry with Genghis Khan to Timur's tribe as a whole, no written evidence from Timur's lifetime or earlier makes such a link to him directly.

Timur's ancestor Qarachar Noyan, written in Timurid works as Tumanay's great-great-grandson, was a military commander under Genghis Khan, and was later assigned to the latter's son Chagatai in Transoxiana. Though there are not many mentions of Qarachar in 13th and 14th century records, later Timurid sources greatly emphasized his role in the early history of the Mongol Empire. These histories also state that Genghis Khan later established the "bond of fatherhood and sonship" by marrying Chagatai's daughter to Qarachar. Through his claimed descent from this marriage, Timur could assert kinship with the Chagatai Khans.

The Barlas had longstanding ties to the Chinggisid political order. Members of Timur's family had served its rulers from the thirteenth century onward, including in the imperial guard, while later generations also occupied military and administrative positions.

The origins of Timur's mother, Tekina Khatun, are less clear. The Zafarnama merely states her name without giving any information regarding her background. Writing in 1403, John III, Archbishop of Sultaniyya, claimed that she was of lowly origin. The Mu'izz al-Ansab, written decades later, says that she was related to the Yasa'uri tribe, whose lands bordered that of the Barlas. Ibn Khaldun recounted that Timur himself described to him his mother's descent from the legendary Persian hero Manuchehr. Ibn Arabshah suggested that she was a descendant of Genghis Khan. The 18th century Books of Timur identify her as the daughter of 'Sadr al-Sharia', which is believed to refer to the Hanafi scholar Ubayd Allah al-Mahbubi of Bukhara.

Practically all of Timur’s contemporaries identified him as a Mongol, including Ibn Khaldun, who personally met Timur in Damascus in 1401, the Arab historian Ibn Arabshah, and the Castilian envoy Ruy González de Clavijo, who met Timur in 1404. In his work describing his encounter with Timur, Ibn Khaldun refers to him as the "sultan of the Mongols (Mughul) and Tatars (Ṭaṭar)", and describes the language of his court as the "Mongol language (al-lisān al-Mughulī)". He also uses the term "Chaghatay" (Jaqatay) alongside the designation "Mongol" (Mughul) when referring to Timur and his commanders. Clavijo also reports that after the death of Chagatai Khan (r. 1227–1242), the Timurid nomads began calling themselves Chaghatays and that they traced their origins to the Mongols of Genghis Khan (Tartaros). Ibn Arabshah refers to Timur’s army as "Tatars" and, quoting Timur’s own words, portrays both him and the Qara Tatars, a surviving group of Ilkhanid Mongols who lived in Anatolia, as belonging to the same people. The term Mughul was never used in the contemporary sense to refer to a speaker of the Mongolian language. In the Zafarnama, the Mongols who lived in the territory of modern-day Mongolia at the turn of the 15th century are referred to as Qalmaq, not Mughul.

Nevertheless, Timur and his descendants (the Timurids) regarded themselves as belonging to the Mongol ulus and were perceived as such by their contemporaries. They identified themselves with the Chagatay Mongols, and those around them likewise recognized them as such. Timur’s Mongol identity was not constructed as an attempt to legitimize his rule; it reflected his ethnic origin and product of his Mongol descent.

Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh (now Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan), some 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Samarkand, part of what was then the Chagatai Khanate. His name, Temur, means "iron" in Chagatai, his mother tongue (cf. Uzbek Temir, Turkish Demir). It is likely cognate with Genghis Khan's birth name, Temüjin, a loan from Common Turkic *temürči(n) "blacksmith".

Later Timurid dynastic histories claim that Timur was born on 8 April 1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. Several scholars suspect that the 1336 date was intended to link Timur to the legacy of Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, the last ruler of the Ilkhanate and a descendant of Hulegu Khan, who died in that year.

Timur was a member of the Barlas, a Mongol tribe that had been turkified in many aspects. His father, Taraghai, was described as a minor noble of this tribe. However, Manz argues that Timur may have later understated his father's social position to make his own successes appear more remarkable. She states that though he is not believed to have been especially powerful, Taraghai was reasonably wealthy and influential. This is shown in the Zafarnama, which states that Timur later returning to his birthplace following the death of his father on 12 March 1360 AD, suggesting concern over his estate. Taraghai's social significance is further hinted at by Arabshah, who described him as a magnate in the court of Amir Husayn Qara'unas. In addition to this, the father of the great Amir Hamid Kereyid of Moghulistan is stated as a friend of Taraghai's.

In his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travellers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle. Around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries disabled him for life. Some believe that these injuries occurred while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in what is today the Dasht-e Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timur's injuries and disability gave rise to the nickname "Timur the Lame" or Temūr(-i) Lang in Persian, which is the origin of Tamerlane, the name by which he is generally known in the West.

By about 1360, Timur had gained prominence as a military leader whose troops were mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region. He took part in campaigns in Transoxiana with the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Amir Qazaghan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he invaded Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second military expedition that he led, and its success led to further operations, among them the subjugation of Khwarazm and Urgench in the Siege of Urgench (1379).

Following Qazaghan's murder, disputes arose among the many claimants to sovereign power. Tughlugh Timur of Kashgar, the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, another descendant of Genghis Khan, invaded, interrupting this infighting. Timur was sent to negotiate with the invader but instead joined him and was rewarded with Transoxiana. Around this time, his father died, and Timur also became the chief of the Barlas. Tughlugh then attempted to set his son Ilyas Khoja over Transoxiana, but Timur repelled this invasion with a smaller force.

In this period, Timur reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads while he ruled in their name. Also during this period, Timur and his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, who were at first fellow fugitives and wanderers, became rivals and antagonists. The relationship between them became strained after Husayn abandoned efforts to carry out Timur's orders to finish off Ilya Khoja (former governor of Mawarannah) close to Tashkent.

Timur gained followers in Balkh, consisting of merchants, fellow tribesmen, Muslim clergy, aristocracy and agricultural workers, because of his kindness in sharing his belongings with them. This contrasted Timur's behavior with that of Husayn, who alienated these people, took many possessions from them via his heavy tax laws and selfishly spent the tax money building elaborate structures. Around 1370, Husayn surrendered to Timur and was later assassinated, which allowed Timur to be formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh. He married Husayn's wife Saray Mulk Khanum, a descendant of Genghis Khan, allowing him to become imperial ruler of the Chaghatay tribe.

Timur's Turco-Mongolian heritage provided opportunities and challenges as he sought to rule the Mongol Empire and the Muslim world. According to the Mongol traditions, Timur could not claim the title of khan or rule the Mongol Empire because he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan. Therefore, Timur set up a puppet Chaghatayid Khan, Suyurghatmish, as the nominal ruler of Balkh as he pretended to act as a "protector of the member of a Chinggisid line, that of Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi". Timur instead used the title of Amir meaning general, and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxiana. To reinforce this position, Timur claimed the title güregen (royal son-in-law) to a princess of Chinggisid line.

As with the title of Khan, Timur similarly could not claim the supreme title of the Islamic world, Caliph, because the "office was limited to the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad". Therefore, Timur reacted to the challenge by creating a myth and image of himself as a "supernatural personal power" ordained by God. Timur's most famous title was Sahib Qiran (صَاحِبِ قِرَان, 'Lord of Conjunction'), which is rooted in astrology a title that was used before him to designate Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the paternal uncle of Muhammad and which was taken by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars and by various rulers of the Ilkhanate to designate themselves. In that regard, he simply pursued an existing tradition in the Muslim world to designate conquerors.

The title was referring to the conjunction of the two "superior planets", Saturn and Jupiter, which was held to be an auspicious sign and the mark of a new era. According to A. Azfar Moin, Sahib Qiran was a messianic title, implying that Timur might potentially be the "awaited messiah descended from the prophetic line" who would "inaugurate a new era, possibly the last one before the end of time." Otherwise he depicted himself as a spiritual descendant of Ali, thus claiming the lineage of both Genghis Khan and the Quraysh.

Timur spent the next 35 years in various wars and expeditions. He not only consolidated his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes, but sought extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates. His conquests to the west and northwest led him to the lands near the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga. Conquests in the south and southwest encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Northern Iraq.

One of the most formidable of Timur's opponents was another Mongol ruler, a descendant of Genghis Khan named Tokhtamysh. After having been a refugee in Timur's court, Tokhtamysh became ruler both of the eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde. After his accession, he quarreled with Timur over the possession of Khwarizm and Azerbaijan. However, Timur still supported him against the Russians, and in 1382, Tokhtamysh invaded the Muscovite dominion and burned Moscow.

Russian Orthodox tradition states that later, in 1395, having reached the frontier of the Principality of Ryazan, Timur had taken Yelets and started advancing towards Moscow. Vasily I of Moscow went with an army to Kolomna and halted at the banks of the Oka River. The clergy brought the famed Theotokos of Vladimir icon from Vladimir to Moscow. Timur stopped his advance and withdrew from Russian territory, with the Russian chroniclers claiming that a vision of the Virgin defending Moscow, accompanied by a heavenly host, convinced him to turn back.