136 • 9 FIREARMS, SLAVES, AND EMPIRES(r. 1304-1317), which supports a dome 250 feet (75 meters) high. This
mausoleum stood in what was to have been the center of a new capital city
called Sultaniyah, set in the Azerbaijan highlands, but today all its other
buildings have crumbled away.
The Mongol conquests introduced Persian artists and craftsmen to the
achievements of Chinese civilization, and so they produced some beauti¬
ful manuscript illustrations, glazed tile walls, and other ceramic creations.
Hulegu, contrite at the damage he had wrought, patronized the great Per¬
sian scholar, Nasiruddin Tusi (d. 1274), who saved the lives of many other
scientists and artists, accumulated a library of 400,000 volumes, and built
an astronomical observatory that became the model for later ones in both
the Middle East and Europe. Some Persian Muslims became viziers to the
Il-Khanids and other Mongol dynasties. Two of these men, Ata Malik Ju-
vaini (d. 1284) and Rashid al-Din (d. 1318), wrote universal histories—a
rare achievement in any culture; these are chronicles from which we learn
much about the Mongol Empire and its accomplishments. Two of Persia's
best-loved poets, Sa'di (d. 1291) and Hafiz (d. 1390), lived in Shiraz, a city
unharmed by the Mongols. The late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
were a time of economic revival and intellectual brilliance for Persia, as
Islamic civilization east of the Tigris took on a distinct Persian character.
Once again, as in the days of the Arabs and the Seljuk Turks, the Mongol
era proved the old adage that captive Persia always subdues its conquerors.
Tamerlane and the Timurids
Just as the Il-Khanid state was fading, a new military star rose in the east. A
petty prince, Timur Leng, often called "Tamerlane," was born in 1336 in
Transoxiana, a land suffering from constant bickering among Turkish and
Mongol tribes. From his youth, Timur attached himself to influential amirs
and generals. He gathered an army of Muslim Turks (or Turkish-speaking
descendants of the old Mongol tribes), with which he hoped to build a uni¬
versal empire like that of Jenghiz Khan. Even before he could subdue his tur¬
bulent homeland, Timur crossed the Oxus in 1369 and proceeded to plunder
Khurasan. When Russia's Mongols, the Golden Horde, tried to align the
principalities of eastern Anatolia and western Persia against him, Timur led
his troops through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, northern Iraq, and parts of
southern Russia. Everywhere they went, thousands of men, women, and chil¬
dren were killed, cities were razed, and farms destroyed. Posing as a devout
Muslim, Timur inflicted special torments on Middle Eastern Christians.
After a brief rest, during which he embellished his capital at Samarqand,
he invaded Persia a second time, crossed Iraq and Syria, and brought his