Iran and Central Asia were made up of numerous overlapping political worlds, in which for centuries power had been contested among local dynasties and cities, and such habits did not cease under central rule. When Temür conquered Iran, he called forth an imposing spectacle of submission, while leaving all but the largest regional dynasties intact. Most had to provide troops for occasional campaigns; some paid regular taxes while others simply had to offer periodic expressions of submission. All had armies, usually a mix of settled Iranian soldiers, local tribes and Turco-Mongolian troops. But much of their political and military infrastructure remained in place, along with their ambitions and rivalries.

Timurid control over society radiated outward from a few major cities, and the level of governmental impact varied widely from one region to another. We can draw a hierarchy of city and regional control, starting with the capital city of Herat, largely dominated by the Timurid court, to the major provincial capitals such as Shiraz and Samarqand, ruled by princely governors heading large armies, then to the secondary capitals like Yazd and Kerman, with governors drawn from among the lesser princes and the emirs, who often came to identify closely with their region. Each governor had at his disposal a provincial dīwān and an army of Chaghatay soldiers. Though in theory the Chaghatay were separate from the Iranian population, in practice both the members of the dynasty and their emirs dealt directly with their subjects, whose religion, culture, and language were all part of the dynasty's heritage.