Disability history month: Was Tamerlane

disabled?
4 December 2012

Tamerlane - derived from his nickname Timur the Lame - rose from
obscurity to become a 14th Century conqueror of nations, who piled
high the skulls of his enemies. It was quite a feat at a time when
physical prowess was prized, writes Justin Marozzi.

Think of the greatest conquerors of all time and chances are you'll quickly list
Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. It is rather less likely, unless you
come from Central Asia or the Muslim world more widely, that you'd spare a
thought for Tamerlane.

Yet in many ways this Tartar warlord, born near Samarkand in 1336 in what
is now Uzbekistan, outshone both the Macedonian king and the Mongol
warlord.

Unlike Alexander, Tamerlane was not of royal blood, but came from humble
stock.
He began his world-conquering rampages as a petty sheep-rustler among
the steppes and high mountain passes of Central Asia.

And unlike Genghis, he did not have one people to lead to military triumphs,
but had to weld together a successful army from a bewildering mass of
different, often fractious, nationalities. By the time he faced the Ottoman
Sultan Bayazid I on the battlefield in 1402, his soldiers came from the length
and breadth of his empire, from Armenia to Afghanistan, Samarkand to
Siberia.

Overcoming these disadvantages was one thing. More striking and startling
by far was the fact that Tamerlane was severely disabled in his right side.

At birth he was given the name Timur, meaning iron, which later gave rise to
the pejorative Persian version, Timur-i-lang (Timur the lame), after a
devastating injury he suffered to both right limbs in his youth. From there it
was only a slight corruption to Tamburlaine and Tamerlane, the names by
which he is better known in the West.

Such a physical disability, at a time when martial skills were a prerequisite of

political power, would have been a crushing blow for most men.

The young Tamerlane would have known the local proverb "only a hand that
can grasp a sword may hold a sceptre''. Self-advancement in this brutal
world was inconceivable without excelling in hand-to-hand combat and
mounted archery.

The sources leave us in no doubt about the injury, although there is

uncertainty over exactly how it occurred. It probably happened in about
1363, when Tamerlane was serving as a mercenary for the Khan of Sistan in
Khorasan, in what is today the Dasht-i-Margo ("desert of death") in south-
west Afghanistan.

Another source - the extremely hostile Ibn Arabshah, a Syrian chronicler

from the 15th Century - says a watchful shepherd spied Tamerlane prowling
about his flock of sheep, smashed his shoulder with one well-directed arrow
and loosed off another into his hip for good measure.

"Mutilation was added to his poverty and a blemish to his wickedness and
fury," writes the Syrian with a contemptuous flourish.
Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador who visited Samarkand in 1404, records
how Tamerlane encountered a large party of horsemen from Sistan, who
slaughtered many of his men.

"Him too they knocked off his horse, wounding him in the right leg, of which
wound he has remained lame all his life (whence his name of Timur the
Lame); further he received a wound in his right hand, so that he has lost the
little finger and the next finger to it."

A Soviet archaeological team led by Mikhail Gerasimov opened Timur's

exquisite tomb in Samarkand in 1941 and found that he was a "lame", well-
built man of about 5ft 7in.

An injury to his right leg, where the thighbone had merged with his kneecap,
left it shorter than the left, hence the pronounced limp referred to in his
scornful nickname.

When walking, he would have dragged his right leg, and his left shoulder
was found to be unnaturally higher than the right. Further wounds were
discovered to his right hand and elbow.

For his 14th Century enemies, such as the Ottoman emperor and the rulers
of Baghdad and Damascus, Tamerlane's lameness provided an easy
opportunity to sneer - but mockery was easier than beating him in battle.