 | irishgit (151)
09/11/2007 | The kind of savage barbarian nomad that gives people like Genghis and Attila a bad name.
Tamerlane (Timur the Lame) had no interest in anything but conquest, loot, and slaughter, and built no infrastructure, preferring to butcher the educated (and anyone else handy) leaving piles of skulls to mark his victories.
While he clearly had ability to unite and lead his hordes of horsemen, his ability as a strategic military leader is questionable.
None of his conquests survived his death.
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 | DrEntropy (40)
05/11/2006 | Tamerlane (Timur the Lame) was the last of the great barbarian/nomad warlords. Uniting the Turkish tribes of central Asia under his command, he conquered most of the Middle East and Northern India. He succeeded in destroying much of the infrastructure and educated population of the Middle East (just 100 years after the Mongol invasions) leaving behind him minarets (prayer towers) of human skulls and other grisly reminders of conquest. Since he failed to provide for his succession, his empire fell apart shortly after his death, eventually being divided between the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.
While he excelled in the art of war, Tamerlane's failure to create any kind of stable administrative structure for he empire he conquered has tarnished his reputation. Much of the fatalism and backwardness of the modern Middle East is due to the brutal, short-lived conquests of Tamerlane.
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