"Today is like yesterday", that is a phrase repeated by those who read history, but whoever reads the history of the Arab and Muslim nation in particular knows how true the phrase is, the cities that fell today and will fall tomorrow under the armies of tyrants, tyrants and kings, fell yesterday under the legs of the knights whose power over the cities remained Its towers were erected for a thousand years, and it did not prevent them from falling and collapsing when injustice and tyranny prevailed, injustice and fighting broke out, and the division between kingdoms and sects.
History stands a lot with the incident of the fall of Baghdad at the hands of the Mongols in the seventh century AH, a tragedy that had a direct impact on Islamic civilization, as well as the cultural change that took place then, and indeed the demographic change with the emergence of Asian migrations from the interior to the Middle East. But we hardly stand with an incident similar to its shock, what happened with Abbasid Baghdad.
That incident was the fall of Damascus at the hands of Tamerlane, the Mongol military leader who managed to return to the Mongol state, and proceeded from Samarkand to India, Iran, Central Asia, southern Anatolia, and Iraq until he clashed with Egypt's military force during the time of the Mamluk Sultan apparently to the first founder of the Mamluk Mamluk State in Egypt and the Levant. .
But the upgrading of a young man who had no political or military experience or experience to rule after the death of Sultan Barquq in the year 801 AH changed the equation radically, this ferocious young man was Sultan Faraj bin Barquq who divided the Mamluk policy on itself, and inserted it into civil wars that restored hope for the same Tamerlane to invade the Levant and South Anatolia after he almost lost him due to the power and intelligence of Sultan Barquq.
What is the nature of Tamerlane's personality, how was his upbringing and ambitions in the Arab region, and how did the policy of the Mamluk Sultan apparent Barquq prevent his progress throughout his life?
Who is Tamerlane?
Tamerlane (736 - 807 AH / 1336-1405 AD) was a descendant of one of the Mughal ministers, and he was born in one of the villages of Samarkand in Central Asia, attributed to one of the ancient Mongol tribes who were obedient to obedience to Genghis Khan and his children. Timur was called the lamej and means "link", for lame and paralysis He was in his foot, and despite that disability, he was distinguished from his early years by courage, audacity and love of adventure, and Timur tells of himself saying: "Since I was twelve years old, I traveled across countries and fought hardship, worked adventures, vanquished enemies, faced acts of disobedience, and became accustomed to the language of non-obedience. And I confronted them with forgiveness and endurance, and I risked myself in the hour of stakes until I finally managed to conquer the states and kingdoms, and established glory for my name. [1].
Timur joined the service of the governor of Samarkand, who is one of the Mughal khanates, and graduated in the political and military ranks until he was able to subjugate Samarkand to his influence and rule, and began expanding to his new state, annexing Khwarizm, Herat and Sistan in the year 785 AH, as well as northern Persia a year later, then Azerbaijan and Georgia between 788 and 790 AH, and countries The Mongols of the Caucasus known as the Dasht country located on both sides of the Volga River Basin in southern Russia today, but Timor led a military campaign against Russia itself in the year 797 AH, then moved towards Iraq and the Mamluk state parties in the Levant, South and Anatolia ( [2] ) .
Timur had a strong and striking personality, showing signs of leadership and Sultanate from a young age, as he was very faithful to himself and his strength, and compares him to the Austrian historian Vampire in terms of his ambition, which had no borders, his war genius, his willpower in Caesar, Alexander of Macedon, and Genghis Khan, and he adds: "Were it not for the military genius that he did not deny, besides his high personal talents, he reached the level of the conquerors of the world, and he mentions the words of Timur in the character: that the ruler who scares people to whip more than his personality is not worthy of his position. This is confirmed by some Muslim historians such as Shams Al-Din Al-Sakhawi Who said: Timur was his prestige that was not condemned as he walked with the grandfather with the near and far and did not like joking, having fun and lying, and the inscription of his ring was: Rusty Rusty; that is, honesty was delivered [3].
This was confirmed by Ibn Arabshah, the Damascene historian, who was taken prisoner by Timur, and dated for him in his important book, “The Wonders of Al-Maqdour in the Dilemmas of Timor,” where he enumerated his qualities and characteristics despite his tyranny, cruelty, and bloodyness. He says: “Timur was fond of reading dates and listening to them.” And in another place: “Timur was not He admires the wonder, and is not impressed by the fun and singing. ”After talking about the expansion of his empire in Asia from China to Iraq, he says:“ Then, with the expansion of his kingdom and the spread of his prestige, his arrival and the prevalence of his shrines in the countries, and the attainment of his fears the cavities of the regions and regions, the weight of his weights, and the disappearance of his approach to one direction And his transmission, was taking place in the body of the world, the course of Satan from Ibn Adam, and bears in the country, the tears of poison in the bodies "[4] a sign of his activity and the speed of his movement in this vast empire around.
It is with these qualities that history told us that we can understand the personality of Tamerlane, the character who sought to build her personal glory on the skulls of the opposing leaders and the general public alike, and in his pursuit of his dream of forming a sprawling empire characterized by seriousness, strength, prestige and intelligence, and he had the appropriate limit of the culture that Qualifying him to get acquainted with the experiences of the previous rulers, so he was fond of reading and reading history, and history is the most important and most prominent factor in the political and military industry expert of all time.
Autism to face the Timorese threat
Tamerlane's military news and conquests first came to the ears of Sultan Al-Zahir Barquq in Cairo in 788 AH / 1386 AD by an ambassador from the Prince of Mardin in southern Anatolia.It says: “That one of the Gtevian Tatars is said to have Tamerlane had taken over the country, and his early armies reached Tabriz and vandalized them” ( [5] ) , and the Khan, Ahmed bin Owais al-Jalayeri, the Emir of Iraq sent a message to Cairo containing the same warning about the danger of Tamerlane and the need to unite to confront it ( [6] ) .
However, the Timorese expansion extended to the east, so he reached the city of Edessa (Urfa now in southern Turkey) in 789 AH and subverted it, and Tamerlane managed to defeat the Turkmen prince Qaramu Amir of Azerbaijan, then the Timorese forces advanced to the city of Malatya (central Turkey today) the city that was subject to the Mamluk Sultanate In Cairo.
Then Tamerlane sent a strongly worded message to the Emir of Sivas and Caesarea in Central Anatolia. Judge Burhanuddin Ahmed ordered him to declare submission to the Timorese state, and he struck the "currency" in his name, so Judge Burhanuddin ordered to strike the necks of the Tamerlane ambassadors, and sent a portion of it to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I in his capital. Bursa, and to Sultan Barquq in his capital, Cairo, asking them for help to help him, and it was from what came in his call for help: "Know that I am your neighbor, and my homes are yours, and I am an iota of your dust, and a drop of your sailors ... Where can I resist him, and that I can facilitate his confrontation? You have heard his conditions, And you knew his scenes and his actions " ( [7] ) .
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Bayezid agreed to supply Prince Sivas and Caesarea with urgent military assistance, and so did Prune; Because the Timorese danger that entered into the depths of Anatolia was threatening the Ottoman and Mamluk countries alike, so a Mamluk military campaign "Exodus" came out of Cairo in 789 AH / 1387 AD and headed to Aleppo, and it was supported by a Turkmen division from the Black Imam Emirate in northern Iraq that was loyal to the Mamluks at that time.Including east to Diyarbakir, and the Mamluk campaign met on its way some of the Timorese army teams that were roaming in those areas, and this campaign managed to inflict defeat on these Mongols, but was able to capture one of the most important leaders of Tamerlane, who is the military commander Talmich, and brought him to Cairo in 790 AH / 1388 AD in his shackles, which made Sultan Barquq celebrate this important military victory ( [8] ) .
Joint Military Alliance
In front of that Timorese military danger, Sultan Barquq established a united Islamic-military alliance led by the Mamluk Sultanate with both the Ottomans in the center and west of Anatolia and Turkmen in southern and eastern Anatolia and the Mughal of the Caucasus in southern Russia. Indeed, Barquk was very pleased with this strong Islamic front, but in Qarara Himself was more afraid of the growth of the power of the Ottomans about the Timorese danger, and in order to clarify his sympathy for the enemies of Timor, Barquq welcomed the recitation of Khan Ahmed bin Owais Al-Jalayeri, the owner of Baghdad in Cairo, and honored him, and married his niece ( [9] ) .
The fall of Baghdad in the hands of Tamerlane in the year 795 AH was a disturbing disaster for Sultan Barquq in Cairo; Because Timur took control of Iraq, and the presence of fixed military bases for his forces in both Diyarbakir and Mardin in southern Anatolia and southeastern Anatolia and elsewhere, the Mamluk state becomes with him directly in front of Tamerlane, and it is with these bases that it becomes the next target directly, and the Sultan thought Barquq was in his place, where Tamerlane sent a strong message to the plum demanding that he submit to the subordination and the declaration of the subordination of Egypt and the Levant, and what was stated in that message: “Woe to all the woe for those who did not comply with our affairs, for we ruined the country, destroyed our people, and we showed corruption on earth, our hearts are like mountains, our numbers are like sand, our horses are precedents, Our spears are paranormal, and our king is not innocent, and our neighbor cannot be joined. If you accept our condition and fix our matter, you have what we have, and you have what we have, and if you disagree and abide, and against your prostitution you will go on, and you will not be blamed except for yourselves ” ( [10] ) .
He did not give in to this plum of psychological warfare, and he sent a message from which it seems logical and rational, in which the firmness of the military plum is revealed, but rather it mocks the logic of Tamerlane, in which it says: And the channel is very speculative, mentioned in the East and the West, if we kill you, yes, the goods, and if you kill us between us and Heaven an hour " ( [11] ) .
Sultan Barquq was not satisfied with this message, as he went out himself the following year in 798 AH / 1396AD at the head of a military campaign to return Sultan Ahmed bin Owais al-Jalayeri as Emir of Baghdad, and to fight Timor, and Barquq remained in Aleppo for a few months, and when Timur returned to his country, Barquq returned in turn To Cairo, the anticipated military clash between the Mamluks and Timor was postponed, and in the meantime, Barquq died in the year 801 AH, which introduced happiness and pleasure to Tamerlane a lot, and he was busy at the time of subjugating India, and this is what Ibn Arabshah (d. 854 AH) reveals by saying: "The missionary came to him from Al-Sham, that Judge Burhanuddin Ahmed Al-Sewasi (Emir of Caesarea and Sivas) and the apparent king Aba Saeed Barquq moved to Dar es Salaam, so he was interpreted and explained, and almost flew to the Levant side of joy, so he quickly completed the affairs of India, and was transferred to his kingdom from the soldiers and soldiers. ( [12] ) .
As for the case of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and the Levant after the death of Sultan Barquq, who was the military and political immune blocking wall in front of Tamerlane in the Arab region, and the rise of his inexperienced son Sultan Faraj to power, whose reckless policy at the internal and regional levels contributed to opening the way to the Timorese external invasion in Bilad al-Sham, it is what triggered the tragedy that occurred in Damascus seven centuries ago!