The craftsmen of Damascus marched off to Samarkand
Editorial contextWhen Timur took Damascus in 1401, Ibn Arabshah says he carried off its learned men and craftsmen, 'everyone skilled in any art': weavers, tailors, stone-cutters, carpenters, cap-makers, farriers, tent-makers, painters and decorators, bow-makers and falconers. They were shared out among the army commanders, who were ordered to deliver them to Samarkand. Ibn Arabshah, then a boy, was himself taken from Damascus to Samarkand.
He took from Damascus the men of learning and the craftsmen, everyone skilled and outstanding in any art: weavers and tailors, stone-cutters and carpenters, cap-makers and farriers, tent-makers, painters and bow-makers, and falconers; in short, the people of every craft whatever … He divided these groups among the heads of the army and ordered them to deliver them to Samarkand.
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Original wording
واخذ من دمشق ارباب الفضل واهل الصنائع وكل ماهر في فن من الفنون بارع من النساجين والخياطين والحجارين والنجارين والاقباعية والبياطرة والخيميه والنقاشين والقواسين والبازداريه وفي الجملة اهل اي فن كان … وفرق هؤلاء الطوائف على رؤوس الجند وامرهم ان يوصلوهم الى سمرقند
About Timur's army and the craftsmen of Damascus
Keep in mind
Ibn Arabshah was among the captives, but wrote some thirty years later and with deep hostility to Timur.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
A marble mosque for Samarkand, and a builder dragged to death
Editorial contextTimur had seen a mosque of white marble in India and wanted one like it in Samarkand. Ibn Arabshah says he ordered solid marble to be quarried and put a man named Muhammad Jald in charge, who raised four minarets and outdid the master builders. When Timur came back from campaign and looked at the mosque, he had Muhammad Jald thrown on his face, his feet tied, and dragged until he was torn to pieces.
… and that blocks of solid marble be cut for it; and he entrusted the work to a man called Muhammad Jald … When he returned from his journey and inspected what had been done in his absence, he went to the mosque to look at it; the moment his eye fell on it, he gave orders about Muhammad Jald, and they threw him on his face, tied his feet, and kept dragging him on his face until they had cut him to pieces.
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Original wording
وان يقطع له احجار من المرمر الصلد وفوض امره الى رجل يقال له محمد جلد … فلما آب من سفرته وتفقد ما حدث في غيبته توجه الى الجامع لينظر اليه فبمجرد ما وقع نظره عليه امر بمحمد جلد فالقوه على وجهه وربطوا رجليه ولا زالوا يجرونه وعلى وجهه يسحبونه حتى بضعوه
About Timur and his officials
Keep in mind
A hostile anecdote about the building of Timur's great mosque in Samarkand; the cruelty may be exaggerated.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
Caravans on carts with no need for provisions
Editorial contextIbn Arabshah says caravans used to set out from Khwarazm and travel by cart (ajal) across the steppe to Crimea, a journey of about three months, without fear. They carried no food or fodder and took no guide, because the steppe was so thick with peoples and so full of security and food that they only ever stopped at some tribe, and only halted with people who honoured their guests.
Caravans used to leave Khwarazm and travel by cart, safe, without doubt or fear … The caravan carried no provisions and no fodder, and took no companion along, because of the multitude of the peoples and the abundance of security, food and drink among the retinues; they set out only from a tribe and halted only with someone who honoured his guest.
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Original wording
وكانت القوافل تخرج من خوارزم وتسير بالعجل وهم آمنون من غير ريب ولا وجل … فكانت القافلة لا تحمل زادا ولا عليقا ولا يصحبون معهم رفيقا وذلك لكثرة الامم ووفور الامن والماكل والمشرب من الحشم فلا يصدرون الا عن قبيله ولا ينزلون الا عند من يكرم نزيله
About Tatars and Turks of the Golden Horde steppe
Keep in mind
Nostalgic description of the steppe before Timur's invasions, written decades later.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
Chinggis Khan's law set above Islam
Editorial contextIbn Arabshah says Timur spoke Persian, Turkish and Mongol but no Arabic, and held to the 'Chinggis Khan rules' (the yasa), treating them like branches of Islamic law. So, he says, did all the Chaghatay, the people of the Dasht, Cathay and Turkestan, whom he calls rabble. For this reason, he adds, leading jurists declared Timur an unbeliever.
He held to the rules of Chinggis Khan, which are like the branches of jurisprudence in the Islamic faith … And so do all the Chaghatay and the people of the Dasht, Cathay and Turkestan, that rabble: all of them put the rules of the accursed Chinggis Khan ahead of the rules of Islam.
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وكان معتقدا للقواعد الجنكيزخانيه وهي كفروع الفقه من الملة الاسلاميه … وكذلك كل الجغتاي واهل الدشت والخطا وتركستان اولئك الطغام كلهم يمشون قواعد الملعون جنكيزخان على قواعد الاسلام
About Timur, the Chaghatay, the people of the Dasht (Golden Horde Tatars)
Keep in mind
Religious polemic. It shows that Chinggisid law still mattered in Muslim Central Asia c.1400, but the tone is hostile.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
'Where would the rabble Tatars learn the sword?'
Editorial contextIbn Arabshah gives the Ottoman sultan Bayezid a furious reply to Timur's letter. Bayezid scorns the idea that he is like 'the Tatars of the Dasht' and says Toqtamish's army was mostly treacherous: the rabble Tatars, he says, have no skill with the sharp sword and nothing but volleys of arrows, unlike the lions of Rum.
As for Toqtamish Khan, most of his army betrayed him; and where would the rabble Tatars get striking with the keen, cutting sword? They have nothing but the showering of arrows, unlike the lions of Rum.
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واما توقتاميش خان فان غالب عسكره خان ومن اين للتتار الطغام الضرب بالبتار الحسام وما لهم سوى رشق السهام بخلاف ضراغم الاروام
About Tatars of the Golden Horde (Toqtamish's army), as seen by the Ottomans
Keep in mind
A speech composed by Ibn Arabshah for Bayezid, not a record of real words; useful for how the name Tatar was used as an insult.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
Timur's four tribal vizirs and the Barlas
Editorial contextIbn Arabshah opens his life of Timur by explaining that the Turks, like the Arabs, are divided into tribes. The four chief officers of the Chaghatayid sultan came from four tribes, the Arlat, Jalayir, Qauchin and Barlas, and Timur was the son of the Barlas chief. On the same page he reports a Persian genealogy linking Timur to Chinggis Khan through the female line, and explains Timur's title Gurkan as Mongol for 'son-in-law', since he married royal daughters.
The Turks have tribes and clans that almost match the tribes of the Arabs, and each of these vizirs was from a tribe … the first of them called Arlat, the tribe of the second called Jalabir [Jalayir], the tribe of the third called Qauchin, and the tribe of the fourth named Barlas; and Timur was the son of the fourth of them.
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Original wording
والترك لهم قبائل وشعب تكاد توازي قبائل العرب وكل واحد من هؤلاء الوزراء كان من قبيلة … احدهم تسمى ارلات وقبيلة الثاني تدعى جلابر وقبيلة الثالث يقال لها قاوجين وقبيلة الرابع اسمها برلاس وكان تيمور ابن رابعهم
About Chaghatay Turks (Timur's people)
Keep in mind
Ibn Arabshah wrote as an enemy of Timur. The print misspells Jalayir as Jalabir; the tribal list matches other Timurid sources.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
The runaway slave who hid in Sarai for ten years
Editorial contextTo show how vast Sarai was, Ibn Arabshah tells a story: a slave ran away from one of the city's notables, opened a shop in an out-of-the-way street and made his living there for about ten years, and in all that time his master never came across him or saw him.
It is told that a slave of one of its notables ran away to a spot off the main road, opened a shop there, traded in it and earned his living; this went on for about ten years, and his master never came upon him there, nor met him, nor saw him, because of the city's size and the multitude of its peoples.
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حكي ان رجلا من اعيانها هرب له رقيق في مكان منحي عن الطريق وفتح له حانوتا يتسبب فيه ويحصل له قوتا واستمر ذلك الحين نحوا من عشر سنين لم يصادفه فيه مولاه ولا اجتمع به ولا رآه وذلك لعظمها وكثرة اممها
About Townspeople of Sarai (Golden Horde)
Keep in mind
A 'they say' anecdote, told to make a point about size, not a checked fact.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
Breath that froze on the beard
Editorial contextOn Timur's last march toward China, Ibn Arabshah describes a winter so cold that a man's breath froze on his moustache and beard, and spittle turned to a frozen pellet before it hit the ground. It is a set piece of rhymed prose about the winter in which Timur died at Otrar.
When a man breathed out, his breath froze on his moustache and beard … and if he spat phlegm from his mouth, for all its warmth it did not reach the ground except as a frozen pellet.
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Original wording
وكان الرجل اذا تنفس جمدت انفاسه على سباله ولحيته … وان لفظ من فيه نخامة لا تصل الى الارض مع ما فيها من الحرارة الا وهي بندقة جامدة
About Timur's army (Chaghatay Turks and Tatars)
Keep in mind
Literary exaggeration; Ibn Arabshah was not on the campaign.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.