Timurid Empire
Tamerlane's Central Asian renaissance
Tamerlane's World
a lame minor warlord captures Samarkand and works around the Genghisid legitimacy gap
~1300–1370
The Conqueror's Method
the skull pyramids, the Tokhtamysh wars, and the deportation infrastructure that built Samarkand
1370–1395
Persia and the Caliphal Heartland
the Persian conquest, two sacks of Baghdad, and the long damage to the Arab intellectual world
1380–1401
India and Anatolia
the Delhi sack, the Damascus skull pyramid, and the captured Ottoman sultan
1398–1402
The Death and the Will
the planned China invasion, the death at Otrar, and Shah Rukh's consolidation
1404–1409
Shah Rukh and the Herat Renaissance
the move to Herat, Gawhar Shad's architecture, and the Persianate template the Mughals would inherit
1409–1447
Ulugh Beg the Astronomer-King
the great Samarkand observatory, the Zij-i Sultani star catalog, and the parricide that ended it
1409–1449
The Long Twilight and Babur
Husayn Bayqara's last cultural bloom, the Uzbek conquest, and Babur's flight to India
1449–1530