Timur

“It is better to be at the right place with ten men than absent with ten thousand.”

“It is good to go swiftly and break an enemy’s power, before he has mustered his full strength. No greater army should be taken than can be maintained on the way.”

“The riches of India tempted him, and the weakness of the Delhi government provided him with a favorable opportunity. By invoking the propagation of the Islamic faith, he obtained the consent of his nobles. His invasion of India was the most ferocious that the country had ever known up to then.”

“It was a day of blackest deed <br /> When Delhi streets of fame <br /> Did glitter well by cursed greed <br /> Of harsh Timoor the lame. <br />”

“A careful study of Timur’s invasion leads to the conclusion that it symbolises little more than the fulfilment of an ambition without a distinct object. After all why did he invade India? If conquest of the country was his object, he had certainly not achieved it.”

“...In vain, I see, men worship Mahomet:<br />My sword hath sent millions of Turks to hell,<br />Slew all his priests, his kinsmen, and his friends,<br />And yet I live untouch'd by Mahomet.<br />There is a God, full of revenging wrath,<br />From whom the thunder and the lightning breaks,<br />Whose scourge I am, and him will I obey.”

“My passions, from that hapless hour,<br />Usurp’d a tyranny, which men<br />Have deem’d, since I have reach’d to power<br /> My innate nature — be it so...”

“Those of the inhabitants who were left died (of famines and pestilence), while for two months not a bird moved wing in Delhi.”

“The Alcoran says the highest dignity man can attain is that of making war in person against the enemies of his religion. Mahomet advises the same thing, according to the tradition of the Mussulman doctors: wherefore the great Temur always strove to exterminate the infidels, as much to acquire that glory, as to signalise himself by the greatness of his conquests.”

“The Koran emphasizes that the highest dignity to which man may attain is to wage war in person upon the enemies of the Faith. This is why the great Tamerlane was always concerned to exterminate the infidels, as much to acquire merit as from love of glory.”

“This strange champion of Islam had come to deliver a stab in the back to the vanguard of Islam at the fringe of India. He was to adopt the same attitude toward the Ottoman Empire on the marches of Rumania.”