Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. Justin Marozzi

and spices, salt and corn, wine and cheese. In 1339, the Franciscan envoy brought Uzbeg a superb warhorse as a gift from the Avignon papacy, in recognition of the khan’s protection of the Christian communities. In the early 1330s, Ibn Battutah discovered an extraordinarily cosmopolitan city of Mongols, Kipchaks, Circassians, Russians and Greeks, each community living in its own quarter. New Saray was, he considered, counting its thirteen cathedrals and numerous mosques, ‘one of the finest cities, of boundless size, situated in a plain, choked with the throng of its inhabitants and possessing good bazaars and broad streets’. Such had been its prodigious growth within a few years that it took the methodical Moroccan traveller half a day to cross from one side of the city to the other.

      Uzbeg’s son Janibeg ruled until 1357, his reign fatally undermined by the ravages of the Black Death, which killed an estimated eighty-five thousand in the Crimea alone. From this time the Golden Horde embarked upon a steady decline. Batu’s royal line came to an end in 1359, paving the way for two decades of civil wars and the simultaneous rise of the hitherto subject Russian princes. From 1360 to 1380, fourteen khans came and went, usually amid scenes of terrible violence. After 1368, when the Mongols were finally expelled from China, the greater Mongol empire was rudderless and unable to resolve the internal disputes of the Golden Horde.

      By the time of Tokhtamish’s arrival in Samarkand, the Horde had fragmented. Khorezm, formerly part of it, latterly independent, had been brought into Temur’s orbit. In the absence of central authority, local leaders rose to the fore. One of the most powerful was Mamay in the Crimea. Another was Urus, khan of the White Horde, whose lands bordered Moghulistan. He, like his rivals, aspired to lead a reunified Golden Horde restored to its former might.

      The leadership of this region was a vital consideration for Temur, for since the conquest of Khorezm it bordered his empire immediately to the north. Fomenting continued unrest in the White Horde by supporting Tokhtamish, a domestic rival to Urus, made eminent sense. It would distract Urus from his larger designs of consolidating the Golden Horde, which threatened Temur’s embryonic empire to the south.

      No expenses were spared, therefore, when the dishevelled Tokhtamish presented himself in Samarkand. Temur greeted him as his son and threw a sumptuous banquet to welcome him. He gave him gold, precious jewels, new weapons and armour, magnificent belts, cloths, furniture, horses, camels, tents and pavilions, kettle-drums and slaves. To help establish him, he was given lands on Temur’s northern borders and an army to further his designs.

      Twice Tokhtamish attacked Urus and twice he was repelled. Each time, Temur made good his losses and re-equipped him without complaint. When an ambassador arrived from Urus demanding the surrender of the fugitive, Temur’s response was swift: he joined battle alongside Tokhtamish. After stalemate in the frozen steppes, Temur and Tokhtamish were at last victorious. Urus died, his louche and incompetent successor was overthrown soon afterwards, and in 1378 Tokhtamish was installed as khan with Temur’s support. From that time he dedicated himself to bringing the entire Golden Horde under his control.

      No sooner had Temur resolved this northern question – for now – than news reached him that a former adversary had mounted a rebellion. In Khorezm, Yusef Sufi, no doubt ruing his decision to become Temur’s vassal, had elected to regain his independence. Reneging on formal agreements, though he himself practised it unswervingly throughout his campaigns, was anathema to Temur when encountered in an enemy. It demanded punitive retaliation.

      The city of Urganch was surrounded. Arabshah described it as a ravished maiden: ‘To the beautiful virgin he sent in a suitor and besieged her and reduced her to the utmost distress, tightening the garments of the throat at the neck of her approaches, so that his nails were almost fixed in her lappets.’ As the siege engines and mangonels massed around the city walls and set about their destructive work, a desperate Yusef sent a message to Temur: ‘Why should the world face ruin and destruction because of two men? Why should so many faithful Muslims perish because of our quarrel? Better that we two should find ourselves face to face in open field to prove our valour.’ A time and a place for the duel were suggested.

      It was an ill-considered approach to a man who, though lame in his right side, had always thrived on combat. Temur accepted the challenge. Methodically, piece by piece, he donned his duelling armour. The circular embossed shield was secured on his left arm. From his left hip hung his long, curved sword. Only after he had mounted his charger did he put on his black and gold helmet.

      Fearing disaster, his amirs crowded round, pleading with him not to undertake such a rash mission. There was no need for such a display of personal bravery, they pleaded with him. It was their duty to fight on the battlefield. The emperor’s job was to command from the throne. The old amir Sayf ad-din Nukuz rushed forward, grabbed the horse’s reins and remonstrated with his leader. Temur would not countenance any opposition. He made as if to strike his aged retainer and then broke free. Taking a last look at his assembled amirs, he roused his horse with a cry, spurred it forward and galloped off towards the moated city of Urganch, leaving his panic-stricken followers coughing in the dust.

      In front of the city walls, under the incredulous stare of scores of archers, any one of whom could have killed him with a single well-placed arrow, Temur announced himself. He had come to accept Yusef Sufi’s challenge. He was met with silence. Yusef had never expected Temur to pick up the gauntlet thrown down in the heat of the siege, yet here he was, alone and unprotected. It was a gesture of outstanding bravery and blind recklessness. Humiliated in front of his own men, Yusef cowered in his inner rooms. He had no intention of going out to meet Temur in a duel to the death.

      The Tatar looked up with contempt at the massed ranks of archers on the ramparts. ‘He who breaks his word shall lose his life,’ he shouted, and with that he was gone. Passing back through the lines of siege engines across the empty plain, he returned to a tumultuous reception from his men. Yusef, if he ever heard his enemy’s last words, must have been haunted by them. Within three months he had fallen sick and died. The outlying provinces were plundered and ravaged by Temur’s hordes who moved across the plains like devouring locusts. Urganch, the city of plenty, now belonged to Temur.

      The sacking of Urganch in 1379, though cataclysmic for Khorezm, did not bring to an end the history of Temur’s involvement with the city. His empire was one of conquest followed, often years later, by reconquest. A formal empire like that of Rome was neither his model nor his ambition. Trade, and the peace and stability needed to promote it, always weighed heavily in his calculations, but they were of secondary importance to the overwhelming principle of conquest. Conquest required armies, armies required soldiers. And soldiers had to be paid and rewarded for their efforts. A map of his campaigns remains the most eloquent statement of Temur’s boundless ambition, his relentless drive, his limitless energy. Lines stretch greedily across Asia, through natural obstacles, across deserts, past powerful enemies, as far west as the gates of Europe on the Turkish coast, as far east as deepest Siberia, from the outskirts of Moscow in the north, across the roof of the world to Delhi in the south. Looking at this map and studying the dates of these campaigns – back-to-back for thirty-five years with only a single hiatus of two years during which Temur remained in Samarkand – it is difficult to counter the argument that keeping his armies on the move, plundering and sacking as they went, was his overriding raison d’être.

      Had the leaders of Urganch understood this, they might well have cast aside any delusions of independence and opted for a more peaceful existence under the yoke of Temur’s empire. But memories must have been very short in the city, for in 1388, only a decade after the last failed revolt, the Sufi dynasty of Khorezm, spurred on by the troublemaking Tokhtamish, now established as khan of the Golden Horde, decided to rebel.

      Once more Temur returned to the city, and once more the results were catastrophic for its citizens. If he was cruel in conquest, when revisiting a city he was merciless. Urganch was razed. For ten days he led his men in savagery and slaughter. By the end of it the city which had been ‘a place of meeting for the learned, a home for men of culture and poets, a resort of the refined and great’, had disappeared. Urganch consisted only of a single mosque. As a mark of his wrath, Temur had barley sown over the ground where once the city had stood. It was his most feared calling card, a reminder that should he wish to do so he could erase an entire city from the face of the earth.