Besides the two histories of Tímúr already mentioned, the Persian Ẓafar-náma of Sharafu'd-Dín 'Alí Yazdí and Niẓám-i-Shámí's history of Tímúr the Arabic 'Ajá'ibu'l-Maqdúr of Ibn 'Arabsháh, there exists a third contemporary history, un­published, and, so far as is known, represented only by the unique MS. Add. 23,980 of the British Museum. This history, also written in Persian, and also entitled Ẓafar-náma, was undertaken at Tímúr's command in 804/ 1401-2 by Niẓám-i-Shámí, and was concluded and presented to Tímúr in 806/1403-4, just a year before his death. The author was living in Baghdád when it was taken by Tímúr in 795/1393, and was the first person who came out to greet him. “God have mercy on thee,” said Tímúr, “for thou wert the first person to come forth from this city before me!” * This history, conciser and less florid than the homonymous work of Sharafu'd-Dín, appears to deserve publication, and seems to have formed the basis of the later work. In writing this chapter I have had at my disposal not only my own brief notes on its contents, taken during spare hours in the British Museum, but also a complete transcript made for me by my friend Dr Aḥmad Khán.

Reference must also be made to the so-called “Memoirs” and “Institutes” of Tímúr (Malfúẓát and Tuzúkát-i-Tímúrí),

The so-called “Memoirs” and “Institutes” of Tímúr which, though translated into English from the Persian and widely quoted and used by Euro­pean writers, are now generally, and I think properly, regarded by the best judges as apocry­phal . * The Persian version of this book was first produced in the seventeenth century of our era, in the reign of Sháh Jahán (1628-1659), by a certain Abú Ṭálib al-Ḥusayní, who professed to have translated it from a Turkí original dis­covered by him in the library of a certain Ja'far Páshá, governor of Yaman (Arabia Felix). Of the existence of this Turkí original no evidence whatever exists save this statement of Abú Ṭálib's, and it appears much more likely that he himself compiled the Persian work, in imitation of Bábur's * authentic autobiography, with the aid of the Ẓafar-náma and other histories of Tímúr. A manuscript of this work was brought to England by Major Davy in 1779, and on his death in 1784 passed into the possession of his son. In 1779 he wrote to Dr White, then Laudian Professor of Arabic in the University of Oxford, a high appreciation of this book and a vehement defence of its authenticity, * and in 1783 both the text and translation of the “Institutes” were published in collaboration by these two. In 1787 Professor Langlès produced a French translation with the following cumbrous title: Instituts politiques et militaires de Tamerlan, proprement appellé Timour, écrits par lui-même en Mongol, et traduits en François, sur la version Persane d'Abou-Taleb Al-Hosseïni, avec la Vie de ce Conquérant, d'après les meilleurs Auteurs Orientaux, des Notes, et des Tables Historique, Géo-graphique, &c. In 1830 Major Charles Stewart published an English translation of the Malfúẓát or [pseudo] auto­biographical Memoirs.

Not only as one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen, but as the ancestor of the so-called Moghul dynasty in India, Tímúr has attracted the attention of many European (especially English) as well as Asiatic historians, and has furnished a subject for many writers. For the purposes of this book, in which the historical portion of the subject is necessarily subordinated to the literary, it will be sufficient to give a brief sketch of his career, based chiefly on the Ẓafar-náma and Ibn 'Arabsháh, especially that portion of it which is connected with Persia.

Tímúr (a name which in Turkish signifies “Iron”) was born at Kash in Transoxiana on Sha'bán 28, 736 (April 11,

Birth of Tímúr 1336). As usual in the case of men who after­wards became famous, attempts are made by his panegyrists on the one hand to affiliate him (through Qaráchár Noyán) to the Mongol Royal House of Chingíz Khán, and on the other to surround his birth with all manner of portents indicative of his future greatness. Ibn 'Arab-sháh, on the other hand, merely gives the names of his father (Taragháy) and his grandfather (Abgháy), says that “he and his father were herdsmen, belonging to a gang of rascals devoid alike of intelligence and religion,” and ascribes the limp to which he owed his sobriquet of “the Lame” (Lang) to a wound received while engaged in stealing sheep. His early adventures and the steps by which he gradually attained the leading position amongst his people need not here detain us, and it is sufficient to say that he first became prominent at the age of 24 in 761/1360; received the title of Ṣáḥib-Qirán (“Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction”) ten years later when he succeeded in killing his rival Sulṭán Ḥusayn in Sha'bán, 771 (March, 1370); spent six or seven years after this in consolidating his power in Transoxiana,

First Persian campaign of 1381 and did not seriously turn his attention to Persia until the spring of A.D. 1381, when he was 45 years of age. In this first campaign, which lasted only for the inside of a year, his attention was con­fined to Khurásán. At Andakhúd he paid his respects to a more or less crazy dervish known as Bábá Sangú, * and, with that superstition which was so strangely blended with his ferocious energy, interpreted as a presage of victory the piece of meat which that holy but demented personage threw at his head. Sarakhs surrendered to him, and, after visiting another holy man, Zaynu'd-Dín Abú Bakr, at Táyabád, he captured and destroyed Búshanj. The reduction of Herát and submission of Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Pír 'Alí, the Kurt ruler, followed; and thereafter came the turn of Ṭús, Isfará'in (which was levelled with the ground and many of its inhabitants slain), and Kalát. He then returned to Samarqand and Bukhárá for the winter.

In the spring of the following year (A.D. 1382) he con­tinued his operations against Persia. At Kalát, where he Persian cam­paign of 1382 encamped, he was joined by his son Mírán-sháh from Sarakhs and by the now submissive Ghi-yáthu'd-Dín Kurt from Herát; and, having established a blockade of this strong place, he passed on to Turshíz, which also surrendered to him. Here he received an ambassador from Sháh Shujá', the Muẓaffarí ruler of Fárs, whose daughter he demanded in marriage for his grandson Pír Muḥammad. Having received the submission of Amír Walí, the ruler of Mázandarán, Tímúr returned for the winter to Samarqand, his capital, where he was for a while plunged in sorrow by the death of his wife Dilshád Ághá and her elder sister Qutlugh Turkán Ághá.

In the autumn of A.D. 1383, after despatching an expe­dition against the heathen Mongols to pursue Qamaru'd-Dín,

Third Persian campaign of 1383-4 Tímúr again set out on a campaign against Mázandarán and Sístán. Towards the end of October he attacked Sabzawár, undermined and destroyed the citadel, and took captive some two thousand persons, whom “he piled alive one on another, compacted them with bricks and clay, and erected minarets, so that men, being apprised of the majesty of his wrath, might not be seduced by the demon of arrogance, and so cast themselves into the pit of wailing and destruction.” * Having received the sub­mission of Faráh, he attacked Zirih, which was fiercely defended by some five thousand men, most of whom were slain, and their heads built up into minarets. In December Sístán fell before his onslaught, and “whatever was in that country, from potsherds to royal pearls, and from the finest fabrics to the very nails in the doors and walls, was swept away by the winds of spoliation, while the lightning of rapine, comprehending alike the greater and the less of that land, consumed moist and dry together.” * After reducing two or three other fortresses, and constructing more pyramids of the skulls of his enemies, Tímúr captured Qandahár, hanged the commander of the garrison, and returned to his capital Samarqand, where he allowed himself a period of repose lasting three months.

It would be tedious, and, in a work of this character, out of place to describe in detail the almost annual cam­paigns which occupied the remaining twenty years of Tímúr's life, but in brief they were as follows: