Latest / Tamerlane: The Conqueror Who Tried to Rebuild the Mongol Legacy — Fexingo History / Tamerlane's Captive Mongol Shamans: The Battle for the Steppe Soul
Transcript
- Lucas: So far in this series we've looked at how Tamerlane brought captive artisans, scholars, and even elephants to Samarkand. But there's one group we haven't talked about yet that I think reveals a really interesting tension in his rule — the captive shamans. Luna: Shamans? I thought Tamerlane was a devout Muslim. Lucas: He was, at least publicly. He styled himself as a defender of Islam, built grand mosques, patronised Sufi sheikhs. But he also came from a Turkicized Mongol lineage, and the old steppe traditions didn't just vanish because he adopted a new faith. The shamans — they were called böges — were part of the spiritual landscape he grew up with, and he never fully turned his back on them. Luna: So he kept them around, like he kept the ceramicists and astronomers? Lucas: In a way, yes, but it was more complicated. The shamans weren't just captured artisans — they were spiritual specialists who connected the living with the spirit world, interpreted omens, performed healing rituals. Tamerlane brought them to Samarkand from conquered tribes like the Qara'unas and even his own Barlas clan. He needed them because, for many of his soldiers, the old ways still held power. Lucas: Take the Battle of the Terek River in 1395, for example. That was the big showdown with Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde. According to the Zafarnama, a shaman named Chotun-Qutlugh performed a ritual before the battle and predicted a decisive victory. Tamerlane publicly credited Allah, but he also made sure the shaman's prophecy was recorded. Luna: So hedging his bets. Lucas: Exactly. He was a pragmatist. He knew that if you're leading an army that includes Mongols, Turks, and Persians, you need to speak their spiritual languages. The shamans were one more tool in his arsenal for keeping the troops loyal and morale high. Lucas: But that created friction with orthodox Islamic scholars like Ibn Arabshah, a Syrian historian who despised Tamerlane. Ibn Arabshah wrote scathingly about the shamanic practices he saw at Tamerlane's court. He described rituals involving fire, animal sacrifice, and divination with shoulder blades. He saw it as a corruption of true Islam. Luna: And this was happening right in Samarkand, the supposed jewel of the Islamic world? Lucas: Right. And Tamerlane didn't care. He saw himself as above both systems — he could use the Yassa, the Mongol law code, alongside Sharia. The shamans were a link to the steppe legitimacy he sometimes needed to assert, especially when dealing with Mongol nobles. Lucas: One of the more macabre practices was the sky burial. For high-ranking warriors who died in battle, Tamerlane sometimes ordered what was called 'the eagle's feast' — their bodies were left on platforms in a sacred grove near Kesh, his ancestral city. That's pure Mongol tradition, not Islamic burial at all. Luna: And this is the same guy who built the Bibi-Khanym mosque. Lucas: The same guy. He could be both things at once. And the shamans themselves were a kind of captive community. They were brought to a special quarter in Samarkand, near the shah i zinda complex, and they were allowed to practice as long as they didn't publicly challenge the ulema. It was a balancing act. Luna: It makes me think about how the listeners who support this show, through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, allow us to dive into these overlooked corners of history. It really is a conversation that wouldn't happen without them. Lucas: Absolutely. And speaking of overlooked corners — the shamans didn't just fade away after Tamerlane's death. His grandson Ulugh Beg was a scientist, but he also kept a shaman in his retinue. There are records of a böge advising him on the best time to launch a military campaign. Luna: So the tension between the Yassa and Sharia carried on. Lucas: It did. And it's a key part of understanding the Timurid dynasty. They never fully resolved it. The shamans survived, but they became more and more marginalised over time, especially as the empire became more Persianised. By the 16th century, they were mostly gone from the historical record. Lucas: But for a few decades, Tamerlane's Samarkand was a place where a captured shaman from the Qara'unas could sit in the same court as a Sufi mystic from Khorasan, and both could serve the same ruler. That's the kind of messy, human complexity that makes history so fascinating. Luna: It really is. Thanks for bringing it to light. Lucas: My pleasure. Next time, we'll talk about something completely different — Tamerlane's diplomatic letters to the Ming Emperor, and how he almost started a war with China.