Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World - Hardcover

Marozzi, Justin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 030681465X ISBN 13: 9780306814655

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2006

Synopsis

Tamerlane, aka Temur-the Mongol successor to Genghis Khan-ranks with Alexander the Great as one of the world's great conquerors, yet the details of his life are scarcely known in the West. Born in obscurity and poverty, he rose to become a fierce tribal leader, and with that his dominion and power grew with astonishing speed. He blazed through Asia, razing cities to the ground. He tortured conquered inhabitants without mercy, sometimes ordering them buried alive, at other times decapitating them. Over the ruins of conquered Baghdad, Tamerlane had his soldiers erect a pyramid of 90,000 enemy heads. As he and his armies swept through Central Asia, sacking, and then rebuilding cities, Tamerlane gradually imposed an iron rule and a refined culture over a vast territory-from the steppes of Asia to the Syrian coastline. Justin Marozzi traveled in the footsteps of this fearsome emperor of Samarkand (modern-day Uzbekistan) to write this book, which is part history, part travelogue. He carefully follows the path of this infamous and enigmatic conqueror, recounting the history and the story of this cruel, cultivated, and indomitable warrior.

About this title

About the Author:

Justin Marozzi is a writer and journalist who has traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world. Recently, he returned from a year in Iraq. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

By the time of his death in 1405, the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane-a pejorative derivative of the nickname "Temur the Lame"-commanded as much land and fear as any ruler in history. Literally following in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan, he built his empire with one invasion after the next, eventually amassing a kingdom that stretched "from Moscow to the Mediterranean, from Delhi to Damascus." Nonetheless, Tamerlane remains relatively unknown in the Western world, taking a historical backseat to Ghengis despite a reign and ruthlessness every bit as remarkable. Faced with such a complex and underreported subject, Marozzi delivers an exceptional account of the emperor's life, revealing him to be both an extravagantly merciless tyrant and tireless proponent for the cultural and architectural progress in his beloved Samarkand (in modern day Uzbekistan). One peculiar choice, however, is the book's subtitle, as Tamerlane killed tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims along his so-called "pilgrimage of destruction," including a particularly bloody massacre of Baghdad that left 90,000 dead, "their heads cemented into 120 towers." The subtitle certainly wasn't chosen for a lack of nicknames, as Tamerlane's life produced plenty: "Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction." "Emperor of the Age." "Unconquered Lord of the Seven Climes." "Scourge of God." The list goes on, too, leading one to wonder how it is that such a large part of the world hardly recognizes name.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 030681465X
• ISBN 13: 9780306814655
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480