through Persia into Turkey. One of his great vic-
tories was over his fellow Muslims, the Ottomans,
at Ankara in 1402.
Tamerlane emerged at a time when the hanaFi
legal school was the dominant form of islam in
Central Asia. He included Hanafi scholar Abd al-
Jabbar Khwarazmi among his prominent advisers,
but he largely distanced himself from the majority
of the scholarly community. Instead he seemed to
favor the Sufis. For example, he honored Sayyid
Baraka, a Sufi shaykh who resided in Tirmidh,
and allowed his burial in his own tomb, the Gur-
e Amir. While using Islam to unite his empire
(much of it carved out from Islamic lands), he did
not impose his faith on conquered lands. He was
known for his inclusion of Shii Muslims and even
Christians in his army.
Economically, his early goal was to make the
Silk Road the exclusive connecting link between
China and Europe. His rise to power coincided
with the emergence of the Ming dynasty (1368–
1644) in China. Toward the end of his life, he
decided to move against China and restore the
former Yuan rulers. In the winter of 1404–05, he
launched another expedition, but his age caught
up with him and he died along the way before
entering Ming territory. His body was returned to
Samarkand and buried at the Gur-e Amir.
Tamerlane became the fountainhead of the
Timurid dynasty, which maintained power in Cen-
tral Asia until the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shay-
bani (ca. 1451–1510), emerged out of Kazakhstan
and conquered Tamerlane’s former capital. Subse-
quently, the Uzbeks became the dominant force
in the surrounding area, now called Uzbekistan.
About the same time, Tamerlane’s lineage would
establish itself in India through Babur (r. 1526–30),
founder of the mUghal dynasty (1526–1857).
See also central asia and the caUcasUs.
J. Gordon Melton
Further reading: Samuel Adrian M. Adshead, Cen-
tral Asia in World History (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1993); Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule
of Tamerlane, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civiliza-
tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
Justiin Marozzi, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of
the World (London: HarperCollins, 2004).Tanzeem-e Islami (Tanzim-i Islami; Urdu:
The Islamic Group)
Tanzeem-e Islami is a Pakistani Islamic revitaliza-
tion movement founded in 1975 by Israr Ahmad
(b. 1932). He was a teenager in the years follow-
ing World War II when the partition of pakistan
from india took effect. He attended King Edward
Medical College in Lahore and during the years
leading to his graduation in 1954 he associated
with the Jamaat-i islami, the Islamic renewal orga-
nization founded by abU al-ala maWdUdi (1903–
79). During these years he not only absorbed
Mawdudi’s thought, but he also became familiar
with the work of mUhammad iqbal (1877–1938),
who had in 1930 initially proposed the establish-
ment of Pakistan as a Muslim state separate from
Hindu India.
Following his graduation, Ahmad worked
with the Jamaat-i Islami, which sought to build
a revitalized Islam through influencing students
and social elites. However, in 1957, following
Mawdudi’s decision to enter fully into electoral
politics, Ahmad withdrew. While launching a
career as a physician, he also became an inde-
pendent religious teacher and pursued advanced
work in Islamic studies, completed in 1965 at the
University of Karachi.
In 1967 Ahmad authored “Islamic Renais-
sance: The Real Task Ahead,” a tract in which he
articulated his basic notion that revitalizing Islam
should be pursued by instilling the true Faith and
certitude in individual Muslims, especially the
intelligentsia, which could be accomplished by
propagating Muslim teachings combining con-
temporary language and the best scholarship.
One problem that needed to be addressed was the
seeming dichotomy between modern science and
Islam. Ahmad abandoned his medical practice inK 660 Tanzeem-e-Islami