The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521517065)

Timur (or Tamerlane) is famous as the fourteenth-century conqueror of much of Central Eurasia and the founder of the Timurid dynasty. His reputation lived on in his native lands and reappeared some three centuries after his death in the form of fictional biographies, authored anonymously in Persian and Turkic. These biographies have become part of popular culture. Despite a direct continuity in their production from the eighteenth century to the present, they remain virtually unknown to people outside the region. This remarkable and rigorous scholarly appraisal of the legendary biographies of Tamerlane is the first of its kind in any language. The book sheds light not only on the character of Tamerlane and how he was remembered and championed by many generations after his demise, but also on the era in which the biographies were written, and how they were conceived and received by the local populace during an age of crisis in their own history.

Author: Ron Sela
ISBN-10: 0521517060
ISBN-13: 9780521517065
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/29/2011
Pages: 186
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.20w x 0.70d