Beatrice Forbes ManzBesprekingen

This is a heroic effort (in my view) to make sense of a bewildering medley of places and names and personages of the Central Asian region that came under the sway of Timur (Tamerlane) in the late 14th century. Somewhat like the great Ginghiz or Chingiz of the Mongolian steppe in the previous century, Timur, a less important scion of the Chagatayid branch of the Turko-Mongol world, managed to establish a sort of empire by tirelessly taking his bands of followers into centre after centre of power and wealth all across the region, from the borders of Persia and Russia to the Indian plains. While he is known to the latter mainly as a blood-thirsty invader who sacked Delhi and left mountains of skulls, the author is at pains to draw out broader patterns of power and politics practiced by Timur in his career. In summary, the study demonstrates how Timur made personal loyalty the touchstone, and thus managed to achieve a delicate balance between his own control of the state and the demands of tribe or clan. The book as such is somewhat tiresome to read, just as the life portrayed itself was a tiring and exhausting one. In the end, Timur's empire did not last beyond him, as the system he had set up did not provide for any orderly process of choosing the successor. This basic character in the Turko-Mongol polity was also the weakness in the later Mughal empire in India during the 16th and 17th centuries, which could be considered another off-shoot of the same Mongol-Chagatayid political and cultural system.½

The Timurids were the the descendants of Tamerlane (alias Timur). In the fifteenth century they ruled the shrinking remains of his empire in Iran and Central Asia - from the sixteenth they would go on to greater fame as the Great Mughals of India after the Uzbeks kicked them out of Transoxiana.

This book focues on the reign of Shahrukh (also written Shah Rukh), Tamerlane's youngest son whose long reign (1405-1447) saw him reunify the bulk of his father's dominions - renewed civil war after his death lead to the permanent loss of the western parts of the empire. What chiefly interests Forbes Manz, however, isn't these wars, but the functioning of the empire and of local elites during the relative stability of Shahrukh's years of secure power. It's about princes of the dynasty, military figures (mostly of Turco-Mongol origin), viziers and bureaucrats (mostly Iranians), and religious figures (likewise); and why they mostly cooperated with the ruler and why they sometimes did not.

The book isn't an easy read; dense, and with an unremitting barrage of Perso-Arabic names, many of them similar. It doesn't help that Forbes Manz frequently refers to the same personage with several different forms of the name - frex, the later Timurid ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara is also spoken of as simply Sultan Husayn or Husayn Bayqara. He's not to be confused with Bayqara b. Umar Shaykh, also known simply as Bayqara. The reader also better know what a Sufi shaykh or a tariqa is.

Not a bad book, but I should probably have read something more introductory on the subject first. I might also have liked a bit more focus on military affairs, partly because that's a special interest of mine, partly because the Timurids were a military dynasty for whom military leadership was the chief task of the ruler.

You can't really call this a biography; Forbes Manz makes no attempt to portray Tamerlane (or Temür, as she prefers to write) the man beyond a few remarks about his intelligence, military acumen, and cruelty. She does chronicle his career - the rise part in more detail than the rule one - but the real focus of the book is one the political system he rose within, took over, and transformed among the Turco-Mongol ruling class in Central Asia and Iran.

Comprises: Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World (de Hartog), Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Rossabi), and Tamerlane: His Rise and Rule (Manz).