n. 帖木儿

[ noun ]
Mongolian ruler of Samarkand who led his nomadic hordes to conquer an area from Turkey to Mongolia (1336-1405)
<noun.person>

Tamerlane \Ta*mer*lane"\ (t[a^]*m[~e]r*l[=a]n"), prop. n.
A Tatar conquerer, also called {Timur} or {Timour}
(t[=e]*m[^o]r") or {Timur Bey}, also {Timur-Leng} ('Timur the
Lame'), which was corrupted to Tamerlane. He was born in
Central Asia, 1333: died 1405. Though he claimed descent from
Jenghiz Khan, it is believed that he was in fact descended
from a follower of the Khan. He became a ruler about 1370 of
a realm whose capital was Samarkand; conquered Persia,
Central Asia, and in 1398 a great part of India, including
Delhi; waged war with the Turkish Sultan Bajazet I.
(Beyazid), whom he defeated at Ancyra in 1402 and took
prisoner; and died while preparing to invade China. He is the
{Tamerlaine} of the plays.
[Century Dict. 1906]

Just at the moment when the Sultan (Bajazet) seemed to
have attained the pinnacle of his ambition, when his
authority was unquestioningly obeyed over the greater
part of the Byzantine Empire in Europe and Asia, when
the Christian states were regarding him with terror as
the scourge of the world, another and greater scourge
came to quell him, and at one stroke all the vast
fabric of empire which B[=a]yez[imac]d had so
triumphantly erected was shattered to the ground. This
terrible conquerer was Tim[=u]r the Tatar, or as we
call him, ``Tamerlane''. Tim[=u]r was of Turkish race,
and was born near Samarkand in 1333. He was
consequently an old man of 70 when he came to encounter
B[=a]yez[imac]d in 1402. It had taken him many years to
establish his authority over a portion of the numerous
divisions into which the immense empire of Chingiz Khan
had fallen after the death of that stupendous
conqueror. Tim[=u]r was but a petty chief among many
others: but at last he won his way and became ruler of
Samarkand and the whole province of Transoxiana, or
'Beyond the River' (M[=a]-war[=a]-n-nahr) as the Arabs
called the country north of the Oxus. Once fairly
established in this province, Tim[=u]r began to overrun
the surrounding lands, and during thirty years his
ruthless armies spread over the provinces of Asia, from
Dehli to Damascus, and from the Sea of Aral to the
Persian Gulf. The subdivision of the Mohammedan Empire
into numerous petty kingdoms rendered it powerless to
meet the overwhelming hordes which Tim[=u]r brought
down from Central Asia. One and all, the kings and
princes of Persia and Syria succumbed, and Tim[=u]r
carried his banners triumphantly as far as the frontier
of Egypt, where the brave Mamluk Sultans still dared to
defy him. He had so far left B[=a]yez[imac]d
unmolested; partly because he was too powerful to be
rashly provoked, and partly because Tim[=u]r respected
the Sultan's valorous deeds against the Christians: for
Tim[=u]r, though a wholesale butcher, was very
conscientious in matters of religion, and held that
B[=a]yez[imac]d's fighting for the Faith rightly
covered a multitude of sins. --Poole, Story
of Turkey, p.
63
[Century Dict. 1906]

Note: Timour (t[imac]*m[=oo]r"), Timur, or TAMERLANE, was the
second of the great conquerers whom central Asia sent
forth in the middle ages, and was born at Kesh, about
40 miles southeast of Samarkand, April 9, 1336. His
father was a Turkish chieftain and his mother claimed
descent from the great Genghis-Khan. When he became
tribal chieftain, Timour helped the Amir Hussein to
drive out the Kalmucks. Turkestan was thereupon divided
between them, but soon war broke out between the two
chiefs, and the death of Hussein in battle made Timour
master of all Turkestan. He now began his career of
conquest, overcoming the Getes, Khiva and Khorassin,
after storming Herat. His ever-widening circle of
possessions soon embraced Persia, Mesopotamia, Georgia,
and the Mongol state, Kiptchak. He threatened Moscow,
burned Azoo, captured Delhi, overran Syria, and stormed
Bagdad, which had revolted. At last, July 20,1402,
Timour met the Sultan Bajazet of the Ottoman Turks, on
the plains of Angora, captured him and routed his army,
thus becoming master of the Turkish empire. He took but
a short rest at his capital, Samarkand, and in his
eagerness to conquer China, led his army of 200,000
across the Jaxartes on the ice, and pushed rapidly on
for 300 miles, when his death, Feb. 18, 1405, saved the
independence of China. Though notorious for his acts of
cruelty -- he may have slaughtered 80,000 in Delhi --
he was a patron of the arts. In his reign of 35 years,
this chief of a small tribe, dependent on the Kalmucks,
became the ruler of the vast territory stretching from
Moscow to the Ganges. A number of writings said to have
been written by Timour have been preserved in Persian,
one of which, the Institutions, has been translated
into English. --The Student's Cyclopedia, 1897.
[PJC]