Amir Timur
Amir Timur (Tamerlane) was a turkic statesman and military leader and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty.
Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South and Central Asia, Caucasus and southern Russia, and emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the declining Delhi Sultanate. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire.
By the end of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde and even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty.
Timur is regarded as a military genius, and as a brilliant tactician with an uncanny ability to work within a highly fluid political structure to win and maintain a loyal following of nomads during his rule in Central Asia. He was also considered extraordinarily intelligent – not only intuitively but also intellectually. In Samarkand and his many travels, Timur, under the guidance of distinguished scholars, was able to learn the Persian, Mongolian, and Turkic languages.
He was the grandfather of the renowned Timurid sultan, astronomer and mathematician Mirzo Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449, and the great-great-great-grandfather of Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, which ruled parts of South Asia for over three centuries, from 1526 until 1857. Timur is also recognized as a great patron of art and architecture, as he interacted with Muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun and Hafiz-i Abru.