October 1st, 2005


Osama bin Laden was far from the first jihadist to kill infidels as an
expression of religious piety. This years marks the 600th anniversary of the
death of Tamerlane (Timur Lang; “Timur the Lame”, d. 1405), or Amir Timur
(“Timur” signifies “Iron” in Turkish). Osama lacks both Tamerlane's
sophisticated (for his time) military forces and his brilliance as a strategist.
But both are or were pious Muslims who paid homage to religious leaders, and
both had the goal of making jihad a global force. Santayana was correct when he
told us that those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Tamerlane was born at Kash (Shahr-i-Sebz, the “Green City”) in Transoxiana (some
50 miles south of Samarkand, in modern Uzbekistan), on April 8 (or 11), 1336
C.E. Amir Turghay, his father, was chief of the Gurgan or Chagtai branch of the
Barlas Turks. By age 34 (1369/70), Timur had killed his major rival (Mir
Husain), becoming the pre-eminent ruler of Transoxiana. He spent the next six to
seven years consolidating his power in Transoxiana before launching the
aggressive conquests of Persia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and then attacking
Hindustan (India) under the tottering Delhi Sultanate. [1]

Grousset [2] contrasts Jenghiz Khan’s “straightforward planning” and “clean
sweeps” with the “higgledy-piggledy” order of Timur’s expeditions, and the often
incomplete nature of the latter’s conquests:

Tamerlane’s [Timur’s] conquering activities were carried on from the Volga to
Damascus, from Smyrna to the Ganges and the Yulduz, and his expeditions into
these regions followed no geographical order. He sped from Tashkent to Shiraz,
from Tabriz to Khodzhent, as enemy aggression dictated; a campaign in Russia
occurred between two in Persia, an expedition into Central Asia between two
raids into the Caucasus…[Timur] at the end of every successful campaign left the
country without making any dispositions for its control except Khwarizm and
Persia, and even there not until the very end. It is true that he slaughtered
all his enemies as thoroughly and conscientiously as the great Mongol, and the
pyramids of human heads left behind him as a warning example tell their own
tale. Yet the survivors forgot the lesson given them and soon resumed secret or
overt attempts at rebellion, so that it was all to do again. It appears too,
that these blood soaked pyramids diverted [Timur] from the
essential objective. Baghdad, Brussa (Bursa), Sarai, Kara Shahr, and Delhi were
all sacked by him, but he did not overcome the Ottoman Empire, the Golden Horde,
the khanate of Mogholistan, or the Indian Sultanate; and even the Jelairs of
Iraq 'Arabi rose up again as soon as he had passed. Thus he had to conquer
Khwarizm three times, the Ili six or seven times (without ever managing to hold
it for longer than the duration of the campaign), eastern Persia twice, western
Persia at least three times, in addition to waging two campaigns in
Russia…[Timur’s] campaigns “always had to be fought again”, and fight them again
he did.

Timur’s campaigns are infamous for their extensive massacres and emblematic
“pyramids of heads”. Brown [3] cites “only a few” prominent examples:

As specimens of those acts mention may be made of his massacre of the people of
Sistan 1383-4, when he caused some two thousand prisoners to be built up into a
wall; his cold- blooded slaughter of a hundred thousand captive Indians near
Dihli [Delhi] (December, 1398); his burying alive of four thousand Armenians in
1400-1, and the twenty towers of skulls erected by him at Aleppo and Damascus in
the same year; and his massacre of 70,000 of the inhabitants of Isfahan in
(November, 1387)…

Timur was a pious Muslim, who may well have belonged to the Naqshbandi Sufi
order. [4; also see my earlier essay, “Sufi Jihad”, for a discussion of Sufism
and jihad.] Grousset [5] emphasizes the important Islamic motivation for Timur’s
jihad campaigns:

It is the Qur’an to which he continually appeals, the imams and [Sufi] dervishes
who prophesy his success. [emphasis added] His wars were to influence the
character of the jihad, the Holy War, even when- as was almost always the case-
he was fighting Muslims. He had only to accuse these Muslims of lukewarmness,
whether the Jagataites of the Ili and Uiguria, whose conversion was so recent,
or the Sultans of Delhi who…refrained from massacring their millions of Hindu
subjects.

The Turki chronicle Malfuzat-i-Timuri, a putative [6] autobiographical memoir
of Timur, translated into Persian by Abu Talib Husaini, illustrates these
driving sentiments, complete with a Qur’anic quotation : [7]

About this time there arose in my heart the desire to lead an expedition against
the infidels, and to become a ghazi; for it had reached my ears that the slayer
of infidels is a ghazi, and if he is slain he becomes a martyr. It was on this
account that I formed this resolution, but I was undetermined in my mind whether
I should direct my expedition against the infidels of China or against the
infidels and polytheists of India. In this matter I sought an omen from the
Qur’an, and the verse I opened upon [Q66:9] was this, “O Prophet, make war upon
infidels and unbelievers, and treat them with severity.” My great officers told
me that the inhabitants of Hindustan were infidels and unbelievers. In obedience
to the order of Almighty Allah I ordered an expedition against them.

Timur’s jihad campaigns against non-Muslims - whether Christians in Asia Minor
and Georgia, or Hindus in India - seemed to intensify in brutality. Brown [8]
highlights one particular episode which supports this contention, wherein Timur
clearly distinguished between his vanquished Muslim and non-Muslim foes. After
rampaging through (Christian) Georgia, where he “devastated the country,
destroyed the churches, and slew great numbers of inhabitants”, in the winter of
1399-1400, Timur, in August 1400,

…began his march into Asia Minor by way of Avnik, Erzeroum, Erzinjan, and Sivas.
The latter place offered a stubborn resistance, and when it finally capitulated
Timur caused all the Armenian and Christian soldiers to be buried alive; but the
Muhammadans he spared.

The unparalleled devastation Timur wrought upon predominantly Hindu India
further bolsters the notion that Timur viewed his non-Muslim prey with
particular animosity. Moreover, there are specific examples of selective
brutality directed against Hindus, cited in the Malfuzat-i-Timuri, from which
Muslims are deliberately spared:

My great object in invading Hindustan had been to wage a religious war against
the infidel Hindus, and it now appeared to me that it was necessary for me to
put down these Jats [Hindus]. On the 9th of the month I dispatched the baggage
from Tohana, and on the same day I marched into the jungles and wilds, and slew
2,000 demon-like Jats. I made their wives and children captives, and plundered
their cattle and property… On the same day a party of saiyids, who dwelt in the
vicinity, came with courtesy and humility to wait upon me and were very
graciously received. In my reverence for the race of the prophet, I treated
their chiefs with great honour…On the 29th I again marched and reached the river
Jumna. On the other side of the river I [viewed] a fort, and upon making inquiry
about it, I was informed that it consisted of a town and fort, called Loni… I
determined to take that fort at once… Many of the Rajputs placed their wives
and children in their houses and burned them, then they
rushed to the battle and were killed. Other men of the garrison fought and
were slain, and a great many were taken prisoners. Next day I gave orders that
the Musalman prisoners should be separated and saved, but that the infidels
should all be despatched to hell with the proselyting sword. I also ordered that
the houses of the saiyids, shaikhs and learned Musulmans should be preserved but
that all the other houses should be plundered and the fort destroyed. It was
done as I directed and a great booty was obtained…[9]

On the 16th of the month some incidents occurred which led to the sack of the
city of Delhi, and to the slaughter of many of the infidel inhabitants…On that
day, Thursday, and all the night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in
slaying, plundering, and destroying… The following day, Saturday, the 17th, all
passed in the same way, and the spoil was so great that each man secured from
fifty to a hundred prisoners - men, women, and children. There was no man who
took less than twenty. The other booty was immense in rubies, diamonds, pearls
and other gems; jewels of gold and silver, ashrafis, tankas of gold and silver
of the celebrated ‘Alai coinage; vessels of gold and silver; and brocades and
silks of great value. Gold and silver ornaments of the Hindu women were obtained
in such quantities as to exceed all account. Excepting the quarter of the
saiyids, the ‘ulama and the other Musulmans, the whole city was sacked. [10]

Timur left Samarkand with a large, powerful expeditionary force destined for
India in April, 1398. By October he had besieged Talamba, 75 miles northeast of
Multan, subsequently plundering the town and massacring its inhabitants. He
reached the vicinity of Delhi during the first week of December having forged a
path of destruction- pillaging, razing, and massacring- en route through Pak
Patan, Dipalpur, Bhatnar, Sirsa, and Kaithal. Prior to fighting and defeating an
army under Sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Tughluq on December 17, 1398, Timur had
his forces butcher in cold blood 100,000 Hindu prisoners accumulated while
advancing toward Delhi. [11] Srivastava describes what transpired after Timur's
forces occupied Delhi on December 18, 1398: [12]

The citizens of the capital, headed by the ulema, waited on the conqueror and
begged quarter. Timur agreed to spare the citizens; but, owing to the
oppressive conduct of the soldiers of the invading force, the people of the city
were obliged to offer resistance. Timur now ordered a general plunder and
massacre which lasted for several days. Thousands of the citizens of Delhi were
murdered and thousands were made prisoners. A historian writes: “High towers
were built with the head of the Hindus, and their bodies became the food of
ravenous beasts and birds…..such of the inhabitants who escaped alive were made
prisoners.”

Timur acquired immense booty, as well as Delhi's best (surviving) artisans, who
were conscripted and sent to Samarkand to construct for him the famous Friday
mosque. Leaving Delhi on January 1, 1399 for their return march to Samarkand,
Timur's forces stormed Meerut on January 19th, before encountering and defeating
two Hindu armies near Hardwar. [13] The Malfuza-i-Timuri [14] indicates that at
Hardwar, Timur's army

…displayed great courage and daring; they made their swords their banners, and
exerted themselves in slaying the foe (during a bathing festival on the bank of
the Ganges). They slaughtered many of the infidels, and pursued those who fled
to the mountains. So many of them were killed that their blood ran down the
mountains and plain, and thus (nearly) all were sent to hell. The few who
escaped, wounded, weary, and half dead, sought refuge in the defiles of the
hills. Their property and goods, which exceeded all computation, and their
countless cows and buffaloes, fell as spoil into the hands of my victorious
soldiers.

Timur then traversed the Sivalik Hills to Kanra, which was pillaged and sacked,
along with Jammu "…everywhere the inhabitants being slaughtered like cattle."
[15]

Srivastava summarizes India’s devastated condition following Timur’s departure:
[16]

Timur left [India] prostrate and bleeding. There was utter confusion and misery
throughout northern India. [India’s] northwestern provinces, including northern
tracts of Rajasthan and Delhi, were so thoroughly ravaged, plundered and even
burnt that it took these parts many years, indeed, to recover their prosperity.
Lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of men, and in some cases, many women and
children, too, were butchered in cold blood. The rabi crops [grown in
October-November, harvested around March, including barley, mustard, and wheat]
standing in the field were completely destroyed for many miles on both sides of
the invader’s long and double route from the Indus to Delhi and back. Stores of
grain were looted or destroyed. Trade, commerce and other signs of material
prosperity disappeared. The city of Delhi was depopulated and ruined. It was
without a master or a caretaker. There was scarcity and virulent famine in the
capital and its suburbs. This was followed by a pestilence caused
by the pollution of the air and water by thousands of uncared-for dead bodies.
In the words of the historian Badaoni, “those of the inhabitants who were left
died (of famines and pestilence), while for two months not a bird moved wing in
Delhi.”

The 13th century chronicler, Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286), provided this contemporary
assessment of how the adoption of Islam radically altered Mongol attitudes
toward their Christian subjects:

And having seen very much modesty and other habits of this kind among Christian
people, certainly the Mongols loved them greatly at the beginning of their
kingdom, a time ago somewhat short. But their love hath turned to such intense
hatred that they cannot even see them with their eyes approvingly, because they
have all alike become Muslims, myriads of people and peoples. [18]

Bar Hebraeus’ observations should be borne in mind when evaluating Grousset’s
uncompromising overall assessment of Timur’s deeds and motivations. After
recounting Timur’s 1403 C.E. ravages in Georgia, slaughtering the inhabitants,
and destroying all the Christian churches of Tiflis, Grousset states : [19]

It has been noted that the Jenghiz-Khanite Mongol invasion of the thirteenth
century was less cruel, for the Mongols were mere barbarians who killed simply
because for centuries this had been the instinctive behavior of nomad herdsmen
toward sedentary farmers. To this ferocity Tamerlane [Timur] added a taste for
religious murder. He killed from Qur’anic piety. {Note: Curiously, the 1970
English translation omits the word “coranique” in translating “Il tuait par
piete coranique” (p. 513 of the original L’Empire Des Steppes), so that the
phrase becomes, “He killed from piety” as opposed to Grousset’s original, “He
killed from Qur’anic piety”}. He represents a synthesis, probably unprecedented
in history, of Mongol barbarity and Muslim fanaticism, and symbolizes that
advanced form of primitive slaughter which is murder committed for the sake of
an abstract ideology, as a duty and a sacred mission.

Tamerlane’s barbarous legacy is still with us, 600-years later, in the heinous
acts of jihad terrorism being committed by contemporary jihadists. Bin Laden,
Zarqawi, the Sufi Basayev, and the Shi’ite Mugniyya—inspired by Islamic
teachings conveyed through prominent contemporary Muslim religious leaders—have
continued the practice of mass killing from “Qur’anic piety”.

Dr. Bostom is an Associate Professor of Medicine, and the author of the
forthcoming The Legacy of Jihad, on Prometheus Books (2005).

Notes
[1] E.G. Browne. A Literary History of Persia In Four Volumes, Vol. 3. The
Tartar Domain (1265-1502), Cambridge University Press, 1928, pp. 180-206; Rene
Grousset. L’Empire Des Steppes. Attila, Gengis-Khan, Tamerlan. Paris: Payot,
1952. [Translated as The Empire of the Steppes, by Naomi Walford, New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1970, pp. 409-465.
A.L. Srivastava. The Delhi Sultanate, p. 222.
[2] Rene Grousset. The Empire of the Steppes, pp. 419-420.
[3] E.G. Browne. A Literary History of Persia. p. 181.
[4] Beatriz Forbes Manz. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge University
Press, 1989, p. 17.
[5] Rene Grousset. The Empire of the Steppes, pp. 416-417.
[6] For conflicting views regarding the apocryphal nature of this work, see E.G.
Browne. A Literary History of Persia. pp. 183-184, and Elliot and Dowson, A
History of India, Vol. 3, pp. 389-394.
[7] Elliot and Dowson, A History of India, Vol. 3, pp. 394-395.
[8] E.G. Browne. A Literary History of Persia. p. 196.
[9] Elliot and Dowson, A History of India, Vol. 3, p. 429
[10] Elliot and Dowson, A History of India, Vol. 3, pp. 432-433.
[11] Elliot and Dowson, A History of India, Vol. 3, pp. 445-446.
[12] Srivastava, The Delhi Sultanate, pp. 222-223.
[13] Srivastava, The Delhi Sultanate, p. 223.
[14] Srivastava, The Delhi Sultanate, p. 223.
[15] Elliot and Dowson, A History of India, Vol. 3, p. 459.
[16] Srivastava, The Delhi Sultanate, p. 223.
[17] A.L. Srivastava. The Delhi Sultanate, p. 224
[18] The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus. Translated from Syriac by Ernest A.
Wallis Budge, Oxford University Press, Vol. 1, 1932, p. 354.
[19] Rene Grousset. The Empire of the Steppes, p. 434.; p. 513 of the original
French, L’Empire Des Steppes. I want to thank Ibn Warraq for pointing out the
omission of the word “coranique”, i.e., Qur’anic in the French to English
translation by Walford.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4868

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1336
1,400 years of Islamic Imperialism and Colonialism: The Forbidden History


See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1333 The Politically
Incorrect Guide to Islam

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1326 Islam's
Supremacist Past Is Its Present



See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1303 Multiculturalism,
Tolerance and Pluralism in Islam

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1298 Tolerance and
Pluralism: Islamic Supremacist Literature sold in OZ Islamic Bookstores
See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1292 Islamic
Separtists in Australia: That's why we don't believe in democracy

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1281 Tolerance and
Pluralism: Islamic Supremacist Literature casually sold in Australian Mosque

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1261 Tolerance and
Pluralism: Muslim converts to Christianity face persecution and death in
Bangladesh

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1246
Tolerance and Pluralism: Muslim Book calls Norwegians
'Satan's sons'

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1237
Triple-pronged Jihad -- Military, Economic and Cultural

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1216
Al-Qaeda book on managing savagery

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1204
Chicago Tribune: Watchdog group assails mosque's Saudi
books

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1185
Egyptian Progressive Criticizes Muslim Intellectual
Doublespeak

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1184
Submission - Never-ending Islamic Conspiracies

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1172
Blood Libel: Muslim Conspiracy Theories

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1113
Comparing the Rhetoric of Jihadism and Nazism

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1050
Arab ethnic cleansing imperialism and colonialism:
1,400 Years of Islamic Aggression

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/928
Saudi export of strict Islam raises suspicions

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/906
The Race Against Lies

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/810
Christians and Jews Demonized in Saudi Textbooks

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/718
Islamic concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and
destroy kafir countries

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/803
The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/767
"Intolerant Form of Islam" Taught in German Public
Schools

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/762
Egyptian Textbook: Beheadings are part of Islamic
Culture

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/713
Exclusivism and multiculturalism in Islamic society

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/536
Hate at the Local Mosque

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/380
The Imperialism of Khilafists: Their grand designs to
conquer the west

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/363
New Book Calls Europe 'Province of Islam'

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/23
The Agenda of Islam: A War Between Civilizations

See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/2
The Clash Of Civilizations And The Great Caliphate








---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]