His name meant “iron”, and he would make pyramids out of the skulls of his enemies. A claimant to
the legacy of the great Ghengis Khan, he would both inspire and terrify the world around him.
His name was Timur, and he's one of the most violent rulers you've probably never heard of.
Timur was born in modern day Uzbekistan, at the time Transoxiana, sometime after 1320. By
his own account, his father was a minor noble in service to the Turks, but it's
believed his father was actually a substantial political figure and only diminished by his son
so as to make his own accomplishments seem that much greater by comparison. Whatever the case,
Timur grew up in comparative comfort compared to the rest of his poor tribesmen, but that didn't
stop the young Timur from getting into trouble. He was known to raid travelers for money and goods,
and stories say that at one point he was shot twice with arrows while attempting to steal a
sheep. Whatever the truth of the incident, the two wounds- one to his hand causing the loss of
two fingers, and another to his leg resulting in a crippling injury- would mark him for life.
Timur spent his early years as a mercenary, which gave him the battlefield experience necessary to
join in multiple military campaigns with the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Around 1360 Timur rose to
prominence as a military leader, inspiring his troops despite his two major injuries.
At one point he would ride at the head of a thousand horsemen, helping to subjugate
the regions of Khwarezm and Urgench. At this time, Timur's patron, Qazaghan,
was murdered, leading to a struggle for power. As numerous factions squabbled for power,
Tughlugh Timur of Kashgar invaded Transoxania, and Timur was sent to negotiate with him. Instead,
sensing an opportunity Timur joined forces with the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate,
and together they swept out any who would stand in the way of the conquest of Transoxania.
As a reward for his service, Timur was made prime minister of Transoxania, with Tughlugh's son as
ruler- a situation Timur abided briefly before fleeing with his brother-in-law, Amir Husayn.
Together, the two waged a guerilla war against the Chagati khans and their forces, expelling
them from Transoxania and ruling over it himself. A throne can only seat one man though, and soon
Timur and Husayn were at each other's throats. Timur however had befriended the local people,
gaining folllowers amongst the merchants, tribesmen, muslim clergy, aristocracy,
and farm workers. Husayn on the other hand had alienated them, heavily taxed them, and
then spent the tax money on himself. With public opinion firmly against Husayn, Timur gathered a
force to eliminate his brother in law, and in 1370 Husayn surrendered himself to Timur. Shortly after
he'd be dead at the hands of an assassin, though all evidence points to Timur wanting to eliminate
any loose ends and threats to his rule. But Timur was as wily as he was ruthless,
and after having Husayn murdered, he was able to legally marry his widow, Saray Mulk Khanum,
a direct descendant of the legendary Genghis Khan. While Timur's own claims to the legacy of
the great Khan are spurious at best, he now had a direct link to the mighty conqueror,
and the right to become ruler of the entire Chaghatay tribe- sort of. Trying to rule both
the Muslim world and the Mongol empire led to some challenges, and Mongol tradition forbade
Timur from directly ruling the Mongols because he wasn't a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.
Instead, Timur set up a puppet ruler in his stead with ties to the great Khan, and then pulled the
strings of power from behind the scenes. His marriage to Saray Mulk Khanum allowed
him to declare himself royal son-in-law, and granted him some legitimacy amongst the Mongols.
Now Timur turned his focus to expanding his growing empire, which he ruled by proxy.
First he turned his attention to the khans of Jatah, which would be eastern Turkistan today,
crushing any opposition and expanding his borders with each conquest. When the Russian people rose
up against the Mongols who ruled over them, the khan of Crimea, Tokhtamysh, took refuge
in Timur's court. Initially Timur befriended the exiled Khan, and even provided him with support
as Timur's forces helped to recapture Moscow. As Timur and Tokhtamysh's forces approached Moscow
they sacked and burned several small cities, sending thousands into slavery. On the 23rd of
August, 1382, they laid siege to Moscow, but were initially repelled by Muscovites using firearms.
After three days of bloody fighting though, two sons of Dmitry of Suzdal,
a Russian loyal to the Mongols, convinced the Muscovites to open their gates and no
harm would come to them. Feeling the situation was ultimately hopeless, the citizens opened the gate
allowing the Mongols in, a tragic mistake that would end in 24,000 Muscovites put to death.
Having suppressed the Russian revolt, Tokhtamysh turned his attention to the Lithuanians, defeating
them around 1383 and expanding his own power further. However, in time Tokthamysh turned his
attention to the south, with his eyes on Timur's own territory. This would be a fatal error.
Starting in the 1385, as Timur conquered eastern Persia, Tokhtamysh and his Golden
Horde backstabbed their former ally and patron, swooping into northwestern Iran.
Timur was outraged at the betrayal, but his forces were heavily invested in the conquest of Persia
and it would take time to respond to the attack. This allowed Tokhtamysh to plunder several cities,
making him a very rich man. However, at the battle of the Kondurcha River in 1391, Timur's
forces defeated Tokhtamysh's own. Tokhtamysh's cavalry attempted to encircle Timur's forces, but
the infantry held against the onslaught, and the cavalry having been repelled, began to smash into
Tokhtamysh's own infantry. The Golden Horde broke and ran, completely routed and put to flight.
Despite the shame of defeat, Tokhtamysh recovered his position over the Golden Horde and in the
spring of 1395 raided more of Timur's territory. Timur responded by raising a massive army to once
and for all crush the Golden Horde, routing it at the Battle of the Terek river on 15th April, 1395.
Timur didn't stop there though, and his forces pushed deeper into mongol territory,
sacking all major cities of the ruling khanate. Once more defeated, Tokhtamysh was deposed and
Timur occupied Moscow for a full year. However, with his attention turned north, revolt broke out
across the newly captured Persia. This led to a brutal crackdown by Timur's forces, who massacred
entire cities, building towers out of their skulls as warning to any other would-be rebels.
The warning worked, and Persia remained relatively stable- allowing Timur to set his eyes eastward.
In India, Timur claimed that the Muslim sultans of Delhi were showing too much tolerance for
their Hindu subjects. Under this false pretext, Timur invaded India, laying waste to every city
and army in his way. By the end of 1398, Delhi had been sacked so completely that all that was left
was a pile of rubble, and it would take the city an entire century to rebuild from the devastation.
With India firmly under his control, and an incredible wealth amassed from his conquests,
Timur retired to his capital in 1399. However, keeping a grip on this much territory
was a difficult thing, and foreign powers were always probing the Timurite empire for weaknesses.
Before 1399 was out, Timur was once more back on a war footing, this time in response to invasions
of his territory by the sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. Both had attempted to
stake a claim over parts of his territory, or over his protectorates, and Timur's final
campaign would be one of brutal reprisal. First he marched north to destroy the
forces of Bayezid I. By 1402, Timur's forces had pushed back the Ottomans all the way to Ankara,
where a final confrontation would see Bayezid defeated and taken prisoner. He would shortly
after die in captivity, much like Timur's brother-in-law had once done many decades ago.
Timur's forces pushed further into modern Turkey, laying siege to the city of Smyrna which was
occupied by Christian Knights Hospitalers, putting him in confrontation with European forces. After
the European forces fell, his army rounded up all survivors and then carried out a mass beheading,
earning him great condemnation from some parts of European leadership.
Timur's forces also focused on reestablishing control in Azerbaijan,
and then moved on to Syria. They cut a swathe through anyone who dared to stand against them,
moving by day and building fortified camps by night to discourage raids by Mamluk forces.
In 1400, Timur stood before the gates to Aleppo, where the Mamluk had chosen to stand in pitched
battle. For two full days the fighting raged, until on the third day, Timur sent his cavalry
against the exhausted defenders. His cavalry staged swathing attacks against the flanks of
the Mamluk formation, as a force of elephants from Timur's conquest of India suddenly smashed into
the center ranks. Overwhelmed and demoralized, the Mamluks sounded a general retreat,
making a break for the city gates. After a short siege, Aleppo fell, and Timur exacted his revenge.
And the revenge Timur took on Aleppo may be one of the most horrific acts of his sorted history.
As his men swarmed into the city, they committed atrocities we can't mention on the inhabitants.
Last to die were the men, who were beheaded as the women who survived were carted off into slavery.
To mark his victory, Timur had a tower of 20,000 human skulls built outside the city,
a grim monument to any who would dare oppose him. Timur now turned his attention towards Damascus,
where the ruler had executed Timur's ambassador on arrival. On the way he sacked more cities,
finally facing stiff opposition at the gates to Damascus itself. There he faced off against
Sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj, but Timur's forces once more destroyed all opposition.
Having heard of the horrible fate of Aleppo, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt sent a delegation to Timur,
asking him to spare the city and negotiate a peace with him. Timur agreed- only to turn his
forces loose on Damascus immediately after the delegation's withdrawal.
Perhaps the greatest crime against humanity Timur undertook in Damascus though was the burning of
the holy mosques. Approached by imams and other religious priests who asked Timur for mercy in the
name of Allah, Timur agreed to allow the people to shelter inside the mosques. Any who could find
shelter in the holy sites would be spared the plundering and pillaging to come. Assuaged by
Timur's own proclaiming himself a “muslim warrior” when fighting against Christian knights, the imams
and priests returned to the city, ushering thousands into the shelter of the mosques.
When over 30,000 people had found refuge in the mosques, Timur ordered his men to bar the doors,
then set the buildings on fire. Every single refugee thus burned alive, with any other
survivors enslaved. Timur also forcibly deported all of Damascus' artisans to his own capital,
destroying Damascus' fabled prosperity overnight. It would take the city centuries to recover.
Now, Timur turned his eyes on Baghdad, which had been captured by an alliance of Timur's enemies.
He launched seven sorties against the city from seven different directions, and on the
seventh sortie he ordered all of his divisions to attack at once. The defenders were immediately
overwhelmed, and the city soon fell. Timur gave a simple order to his besieging men- each soldier
was to return with two human heads. The army fell like a whirlwind of locusts on the city, where
none were spared- save for the city's scholars, who were forcibly deported back to Samarkand,
leading to a prosperity of knowledge in the area for centuries to come.
Baghdad however was destroyed nearly to a structure, it's people completely annihilated.
Timur even had his horsemen ride through the city, flattening the terrain and stomping all
cultivable land into dust. He was forced to end the destruction of the city only by the
massive piles of rotting corpses, which baking in the summer heat had threatened to start a
mass epidemic of disease amongst Timur's forces. With offers of submission from the surviving
Mamluk rulers, Timur returned to Samarkand to plot what would be his greatest conquest to date-
the taking of China. However, on the way to fight against the Ming dynasty,
Timur fell ill and suddenly died, sparing China the terrors that he had sown across
the Middle east and eastern Europe. Now go check out why Mao Zedong was
the most brutal tyrant in history, or click this other video instead!