Latest / Tamerlane: The Conqueror Who Tried to Rebuild the Mongol Legacy — Fexingo History
Tamerlane's Captive Historian: The Hostile Ibn Arabshah
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the life and work of Ibn Arabshah, a Syrian scholar taken captive by Tamerlane's forces in 1401 and brought to Samarkand. Unlike the official court chronicler Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi, Ibn Arabshah wrote a scathing biography of Tamerlane in elegant Arabic, painting him as a savage destroyer. Lucas explains how Ibn Arabshah's 'Aja'ib al-Maqdur' (Wonders of Destiny) offers a rare counter-narrative to the Timurid propaganda, describing the sack of Damascus, the massacre of scholars, and Tamerlane's cynicism. Luna asks how…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.