SOME DETAILS ABOUT TIMUR LANG’S LAMENESS AND ORIGIN

• Published in: Banber Arevelagitut'yan Instituti pp. 69 - 75
• Main Author: Margaryan Gor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences of Armenia 01-12-2018
• Subjects: etymology of timur's name; lameness; tam- burlaine; tamerlane; temir aksak; timur lang
• ISSN: 2738-2710
• DOI: 10.52837/18291422-2018.31-69

The general point of view of Timur's origin is the following: Tīmūr ibn Tarağāī was born in 1336 (or 1334) in the village Khoja Ilğar of the district Kesh 1 in Mawarannahr, by the origin he was from turkified Mongolian tribe Barlās. He is known as Timur Lang, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, Temir Aksak2 , which means Lame Timur or Lame Iron: according to ibn 'Arabshah, his name was Tīmūr, which in other languages (probably in Turkish or Persian) pronounced as Tamūr or Tamrlank/Tamarlank and ''he is the Iron ibn Tarağāī in Turkish''3. Besides this explanation (Tīmūr-Iron), another etymology of Timur's name we find in the auto-biographical memoirs of Timur: according to The Mulfūzat after Tīmūr's birth his father went to shaykh Shams al-Din al-Fakhuri to choose a name for his son4 . Shaykh opened Qur'an and read the 16 th ayat of 67th surah ''Do you feel secure that He who [holds authority] in the heaven would not cause the earth to swallow you and suddenly it would sway ( tamūru)?''. Consequently, this word (tamūru) is in the base of the name.