Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T08:51:42.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Legacy of the Timurids

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Stephen Frederic Dale
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The term Timurid is generally understood to comprise all Timur's descendants who reigned or competed for power in western Turkistan, Iran and Afghanistan in the century demarcated by the deaths of Timur in 1405 and Sultan Husayn Bayqara of Herat in 1506. In political terms Timurid rulers distinguished themselves by their fractiousness and perennial internecine warfare, but they and their subjects still bequeathed a legacy that influenced a broad region of the eastern Islamic world and could be felt even in the west in the twentieth century. It would be more accurate, though, to say that there were multiple, discrete Timurid bequests. Apart from the universal acclaim for the cultural florescence that occurred in Husayn Bayqara's Herat (1469–1506), different dynasties and populations selected only those elements of Timurid civilization that suited their own political traditions and cultural preferences. There were three principal groups of Timurid legatees. These were: the Mughul emperors of India, true Timurids who enthusiastically embraced Timurid legitimacy and consciously presided over a Timurid renaissance; the Uzbek and Ottoman States, whose Turkic rulers and subjects revered Timurid cultural achievements while sharing ambiguous feelings about the figure of Timur himself; and the non-Timurid, culturally non-Turkic Safavid and modern Afghan states in which the Timurid legacy was, respectively, the most ephemeral and the most diffuse. More recently a small number of Westerners have laid claim to part of the Timurid heritage by proclaiming the most anomalous product of its culture, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur's autobiographical memoir, to be a work informed by modern literary sensibility and psychological insight. Their enthusiasm is only the most recent example of the diverse ways in which a civilization's legacy may be transmuted by its heirs' divergent interests.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , April 1998 , pp. 43 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Jean-Paul Roux offers the most elaborate and articulate essay on the Timurid renaissance in his recent biography of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, the founder of the Mughul empire of India. Histoire des Grand Moghols, Babur (Paris, 1986), chapter IIGoogle Scholar, “La Renaissance timouride”, pp. 51–93.Google Scholar Maria Eva Subtelny criticizes the idea in her article “Sociocultural bases of cultural patronage under the later Timurids”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XX/4 (1988), p. 398 and n. 1.Google Scholar

2 For introductions to Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava'i see Bombaci, Alessio, Histoire de la littérature Turque, Melikoff, I. trans. (Paris, 1968), pp. 107–35;Google Scholar Khayitmetov, A. H., “Khorasan i Maverannahr vo vtory polovine xv veke”, in Historiya Uzbekskoy Literaturi (Tashkent, 1987)Google Scholar; and Sultan, Izzat, Kniga priznanniy Navoi (Tashkent, 1985).Google Scholar

3 Huart, CI. [Masse, H.], “Djāmi, Maulānā Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.Google Scholar, and Arberry, A. J., “Jami”, in his book Classical Persian Literature (London, 1967), pp. 425–50.Google Scholar

4 Ettinghausen, R., ‘Bihzād, Kamāl al-Din, Ustād”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.Google Scholar, and Soucek, Priscilla, “Behzad, Kamal al-Din”, Encyclopaedia Iranica.Google Scholar

5 Beveridge, Annette Susannah, ed. and trans., The Babur-nama in English, 2nd ed. (London, 1969), pp. 299–300.Google Scholar

6 Dale, Stephen Frederic, “Steppe humanism: the autobiographical writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur (1483–1530)”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XXII/1 (1990), pp. 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Bombaci, , Histoire de la littérature Turque, p. 150.Google Scholar “ Nous devons etre reconnaissants a Babur de s'etre presente comme un personnage d'un relief marque, qui reunit l'heritage de trois races: l'elan vital et le qualités de domination des Turcs et des Mongols, le raffinement persan, le conception ethique et religieuse arabe”.

8 Pascal, Roy, Design and Truth in Autobiography (London, 1960), p. 12.Google Scholar

9 Islam, Riazul, A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500–1700), i (Tehran, 1979), No. A 31, Letter from, Abu'l Fadl ‘Allami to ‘Abdur-Rahim Khan-Khanan, p. 15.Google Scholar

10 Beveridge, , The Babur-nama in English, p. 299.Google Scholar

11 Islam, , A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500–1700), ii, p. 203.Google Scholar

12 Ullah, Mir Izzet, “Travels Beyond the Himalaya”, Republished from the Calcutta Magazine, 1825,Google Scholar in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, VII (1853), p. 329.Google Scholar “The attendants [of the Gur-i Amir] are in much poverty; they told me that formerly they were supported by an allowance from the Emperors of Hindustan, which ceased with Muhammad Shah; and they wished to know if there were in India any of the descendants of Timur, whom they might apprise of their condition].

13 Lentz, Thomas W. and Lowrey, Glenn D., Timur and the Princely Vision (Los Angeles, 1988), p. 323,Google Scholar and Welch, Stuart Carey, India: Art and Culture 1300–1900 (New York, 1985), pp. 143–4, and plate 84.Google Scholar

14 Manucci, Nicollao, Storia Do Mogor, Irvine, William trans, and ed., repr. (Calcutta, 1960, ii). Aurungzeb's seal is reproduced and translated on p. 364.Google Scholar

15 Fadl, Abu'l, The Akbar-Nama of Ahu-l-Fazl, Beveridge, H. trans., repr. (New Delhi, 1987), i, pp. 178–80.Google Scholar

16 Islam, , A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500–1700), i, pp. 178–80Google Scholar and Lentz, and Lowrey, , Timur and the Princely Vision, pp. 321–1.Google Scholar

17 Begley, W. E. and Desai, Z. A., The Shahjahan Nama of ‘Inayat Khan (Delhi, 1990), p. 21,Google Scholar and Poole, Stanley Lane, The Coins of the Mogol Emperors of Hindustan in the British Museum, repr. (New Delhi, 1983), p. 104.Google Scholar See also the evocative painting done for Shahjahan titled “Timur hands his imperial crown to Babur”, in Skelton, Robert, The Indian Heritage (London, 1982), p. 41 and plate 52.Google Scholar

18 Islam, , A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500–1700), i, p. 271.Google Scholar A discussion of the Balkh campaign is contained in Antonova, K. A. and Goldberg, N. M., eds., Russko-Indiiskie Otnosheniya (Moscow, 1958), pp. 74–82.Google Scholar

19 Lentz, and Lowrey, , Timur and the Princely Vision, p. 324, and ns. 84–7.Google Scholar See also Crane, Howard, “The patronage of Zahir al-Din Babur and the origins of Mughal architecture”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, I (1987), pp. 95–100;Google Scholar Chaghtai, A., “Indian links with Central Asia in architecture”, Arts and Letters, XI/2 (1937), pp. 85–104;Google Scholar and especially Koch, Ebba, Mughal Architecture (Munich, 1991).Google Scholar

20 Manz, Beatrice Forbes, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, 1989), p. 53.Google Scholar

21 On the Mughul patrimonial state see Blake, Stephen P., “The patrimonial bureaucratic-state of the Mughals”, Journal of Asian Studies, XXXIX/1 (1979), pp. 77–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Jo-Ann Gross provides a useful introduction to literature on the Naqshbandi order in general and Khwaja Ahrar in particular in “Multiple roles and perceptions of a Sufi Shaikh: symbolic statement and religious authority”, in Gaborieau, Marc et al. , ed., Naqshbandis (Istanbul/Paris, 1990), pp. 109–10.Google Scholar Chekovich, O. D. summarizes Ahrar's career in Samarqand in Samarkandskie Dokumenti xv-xvi vv (Moscow, 1974), pp. 14–28.Google Scholar For conflicting interpretations of the early Naqshbandiyya in India see Siddiqi's, I. H. review of Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi's A History ofSufism in India (Delhi, 1983),Google Scholar in Islamic Culture, LXI/1 (1985), pp. 71–8.Google Scholar

23 Chekovich, , Samarkandskie Dokumenti xv-xvi vv, pp. 336–7Google Scholar. The several waqf structures located immediately adjacent to the royal baths and royal mosque were situated in the area where many Naqshbandi lineages lived at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. I am indebted for this information to my colleague, Professor Alan Payind, Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Center, Ohio State University.

24 Ibid., p. 332.

25 Elias, N. and Ross, E. Denison, ed. and trans., A History of the Moghols of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlat, 2nd ed., repr. (London, 1972), p. 399.Google Scholar

26 Sultan Khwaja Naqshbandi, a disciple of ‘Abd al-Shahid, one of Khwaja Ahrar's grandsons, held the office of sadrbetween 1578 and 1584. Fazl, Abu'l, The Akbar-Nama of Abu'l Fazl, ii, p. 275.Google Scholar

27 The ramifications of the marriage of Babur's daughter to a Naqshbandi shaykh were considerable, for a daughter of this marriage later married Akbar's tutor, Bairam Khan. Following Bairam Khan's death the woman became one of Akbar's wives. Bairam Khan was himself a disciple of an Iranian Naqshbandi, Maulana Zayn al-Din Kamankar, and his son, ‘Abd al-Rahim, is likely to have inherited his father's Naqshbandi connections. See The Akbar-Nama of Abu al-Fazl, ii, pp. 98–100Google Scholar and al-Badauni, , Muntakhabu-T-Tawarikh, Love, W. H. ed. and trans., repr. (Patna, 1973), i, p. 588.Google Scholar

28 Fazl, Abu'l, The Akbar-Nama of Abu'l Fazl, ii, p. 3.Google Scholar

29 I have discussed many of these relationships in my unpublished paper, “Ashraf Sufis: Ahrari Naqshbandis in early Mughul India”, delivered at the Middle Eastern Studies Conference,San Antonio, Texas,November, 1990.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

31 Cole, Juan R. I., Roots of Shi'ism in Iran and Iraq (Berkeley, 1988), p. 230.Google Scholar

32 Baqi Bi'llah's career is described by Muhammad Hashim Kishmi in Zubdat al-Muqamat (Kanpur, 1890).Google Scholar Rizvi, S. A. A. summarizes Baqi Bi'llah's life and spiritual training in his work, A History of Sufism in India (Delhi, 1983), ii, pp. 185–7.Google Scholar

33 See the important paper by Simon Digby, “The Naqshbandi in the Deccan in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century A.D.: Baba Palangosh, Baba Musafir and their adherents”, in Gaborieau, Marc et al. , ed., Naqshbandis, pp. 167–207Google Scholar. Digby's article illustrates that Mughul-Ahrari (Naqshbandi) ties were replicated on a wide scale by Turanian offices and Naqshbandis. His material also makes Cole's references to this phenomenon much more meaningful.

34 Winter, H. J. J., “Persian Sciences in Safavid Times”, in Jackson, Peter and Lockhart, Lawrence, eds., The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge, 1986), p. 593,Google Scholar and Kaye, G. R., “The astronomical observatories of jai Singh”, Archaeological Survey of India, New Imperial Series, XV (Calcutta, 1918).Google Scholar

35 Robinson, Francis, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: shared knowledge and connective systems”, pp. 11–13.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor Robinson for his permission to quote from his unpublished paper. Il'yas Nizamutdinov discusses some Timurid cultural contacts with Timurid-Mughul India in the first half of the sixteenth century, relying heavily on the Babur-nama, in his book, Iz Istorii Sredneaziatsko-Indiiskikh Otnoshenii (Tashkent, 1969), pp. 28–43.Google Scholar

36 Köprülü, Fuad, “Chagatay Edebiyati”, in Islam Ansiklopedisi,Google Scholar and Schimmel, Annemarie, Islamic Literature in India (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 23–6.Google Scholar

37 Soucek, , “Behzad, Kamal al-Din”, p. 116.Google Scholar

38 Beach, Milo Cleveland, Early Mughul Painting (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

39 I am indebted for information on unpublished Central Asian sources to Professor Devin DeWeese of Indiana University.

40 Subtelny, Maria Eva, “Art and politics in early sixteenth century Central Asia”, Central Asiatic Journal, XXVII/1–2 (1983), p. 131.Google Scholar

41 Beveridge, , The Babur-nama in English, pp. 328–9.Google Scholar

42 Subtelny, , “Art and politics in early sixteenth century Central Asia”, p. 137.Google Scholar

43 Allworth, Edward A., The Modem Uzbeks (Stanford, Calif., 1990), p. 52.Google Scholar

44 Chekovich, , Samarkandskie Dokumenti, No. 16, p. 311 passim.Google Scholar

45 Beveridge, , The Babur-nama in English, p. 271.Google Scholar

46 Laude-Cirtautas, Ilse, “On the development of literary Uzbek in the last fifty years”, Central Asiatic Review, XXI (1977), p. 36 and n. 3.Google Scholar

47 Allworth, , The Modem Uzbeks, pp. 226–8.Google Scholar

48 Eckmann, Janos, Chagatay Manual (Bloomington, Indiana, 1966), pp. 1–10Google Scholar; Allworth, , The Modem Uzbeks, pp. 228–31,Google Scholar and Laude-Cirtautas, , “On the development of literary Uzbek in the last fifty years”, pp. 36–51.Google Scholar

49 Khayitmetov, , Istoriya Uzbekskoy Literaturi, i, p. 276.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 281.

51 Ibid., p. 407.

52 Stevleba, I. V., “Some notes on the literary skill of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur”, Journal of Turkish Studies, XIII (1989), pp. 245–7;Google Scholar and Khayitmetov, , Istoriya Uzbekskoy Literaturi, p. 408.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 412.

54 Sibjon, Shaikh, Abdulrahid, , “Baboon-eminent Poet and Scientist”, Muslims of the Soviet East, No. 2 (1983), pp. 19–20Google Scholar. I am indebted to Howard Crane for giving me a copy of this article which conveys an idea of the contemporary Uzbek view of Babur. Pirimqul Qadirov's novel, Babyr, is subtitled Zvezdnie Noci [Starry Nights] (Moscow, 1983).

55 Chadwick, Norah and Zhirmunsky, Victor, Oral Epics of Central Asia (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 138 and 297. A complete understanding of the Timurids’ legacy would require a systematic study of oral traditions and popular literature of all kinds in the eastern Islamic world.Google Scholar

56 Allworth, , The Modern Uzbeks, pp. 242–9.Google Scholar

57 Borodin, Sergei, Zvezdi nad Samarkhandom (Moscow, 1956).Google Scholar

58 Fleischer, Cornell, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, The Historian Mustafa 'Ali (1511–1600) (Princeton, 1986), pp. 284–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Birnbaum, Eleazer, “The Ottomans and Chagatay literature”, Central Asiatic Journal, XX/3 (1976), p. 163.Google Scholar

60 Goodwin, Godfrey, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London, 1971), pp. 109–10 and 137–8.Google Scholar

61 Birnbaum, , “The Ottomans and Chagatay literature”, p. 165.Google Scholar

62 Fleischer, , Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 70–1.Google Scholar

63 For a modern Turk's appreciation of Nava'i see Köprülü, Fuad, “Chagatay Edebiyati”, pp. 296–306.Google Scholar Babur is discussed by Arat, Resit Rahmeti in his modern Turkish translation of the Babur-nama, Vekayi Babaru'un Hatirati (Ankara, 1943).Google Scholar

64 Köprülü, , “Chagatay Edebiyati”, pp. 309–11Google Scholar, and the important article by Gandjei, Tourkhan, “Turkish in the Safavid court of Isfahan”, Turcica, XXI–XXIII (1991), pp. 311–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Binyon, Laurence, Wilkinson, J. V. S. and Gray, Basil, Sayr-i Tarikh Naqqashi-yi Irani, Iranmunshi, Muhammad, trans. (Tehran, n.d.), p. 141 passim.Google Scholar

66 Hillenbrand, Robert, “Safavid Architecture”, The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, pp. 761, 766 and 817.Google Scholar

67 Soucek, , “Behzad…”, p. 116.Google Scholar

68 Lentz, and Lowrey, , Timur and the Princely Vision, pp. 310–13.Google Scholar

69 Komaroff, Linda, The Golden Disk of Heaven (Costa Mesa, Calif., 1991).Google Scholar

70 Sometimes this attitude is implicit, as it is in 'Abd al-Hayy's massive volume, Hunar-i ‘ahd Timuriyan (Tehran, n.d.).Google Scholar

71 Ghubar, Ghulam Muhammad, Afghanistan dar masir tarikh (Kabul?, n.d.), p. 277.Google Scholar

72 Ibid., p. 277.

73 Conversation with Dr Farhadi, Middle East Studies Association, San Antonio, Texas, November, 1990.

74 Repeated conversations with my colleague, Dr Alam Payind, a Pushtun native of Qandahar.

75 Dale, , “Steppe humanism …”, pp. 49–53.Google Scholar

76 Roux, , Histoire Des Grand Moghols, Babur, p. 21.Google Scholar

77 Forster, E. M., “The Emperor Babur”, Abinger Harvest, repr. (New York, 1964), p. 301.Google Scholar

78 Forster, E. M., “What I Believe”, Two Cheers for Democracy, repr. (New York, 1951), p. 67. I am indebted to my wife, Carole J. Dale, for this reference.Google Scholar

79 Ibid., p. 68.