Introduction 4

prolog.
The Birth of Amir Timur 15
The Blessed Birth of Sahib Kiran 16
The special features of this book and some of its advantages 20

Chapter 1.
Central Asia in Chaos: The Rise of Timur

The Current Situation in Central Asia 27
The Attack of the Moghul Khanate by Tughluq Timur Khan and Timur's Response 32
Alliance with Amir Hussein of Karaunasbu, Life in Exile 36
The Rise of the Puppet Khan Kabul Shah Oglan and the Mud-Battle with the Moghul Khanate 42
Division and Conflict with Amir Hussein 46
Amir Timur's Flee to Khurasan and His Counterattack 51
Reconciliation with Amir Hussein and the Badakshan Expedition 56
Final victory over Amir Hussein and capture of Mawara an-Nahr 61

Chapter 2.
Beyond Central Asia to surrounding regions

Timur's Ascension and Kurultai 69
Attack on the south of the Amu Darya River and the Moghul Khanate 72
The attack on Khwarazm and the reconciliation, the marriage of his son Jahangir with Khanzada, daughter of Khwarazm Wali, 74
Attack by Amir Qamar ad-Din of the Moghul Khanate 78
Support for Juchiulus Toktamish 83
The attack on western Khurasan and the capture of Herat 88
Mazandaran and Sistan, Afghanistan Attack 93
First Steps into Western Iran 102

Chapter 3.
A three-year expedition that began a struggle for hegemony over Azerbaijan

Expedition to Azerbaijan and Georgia 111
The expedition of Kara Muhammad and Muzaffar and their return to Samarkand 116
Khorezm and Self-Attack 122
The Beginning of the Kipchak Expedition 127
The Parade of the Army and the Pursuit of Toktamish Khan 131
The Battle with Toktamish, Victory, and Return 135

Chapter 4.
A five-year expedition across southwestern Iran, Iraq, and the Caucasus

The Beginning of the Five-Year Expedition and the Conquest of Mazandaran 143
The advance on Shiraz and the fall of the Muzaffarid Empire 148
The Advance to Baghdad, Iraq, and the Mountain Nomad Expedition 153
The Diyarbakir Expedition and the Death of Amirzada Umar Sheikh 159
The Eastern Anatolian Expedition and the Birth of Amirzada Ulugbek 164
The Georgian Expedition and the Birth of Ibrahim Sultan 167
Toktamysh Khan's Expedition and the Attack on Russia 172
The Hormuz Expedition and the Return to Samarkand 176
Garden and Castle Renovations and Marriage Negotiations with the Mogul Khanate 182

Chapter 5.
Beyond the Indus to Delhi and the Ganges, the Indian Expedition

Timur's Expedition to India and His Advance into Afghanistan 191
The Battle with the Pagans on the Road to Delhi 196
201 as the capital of the Delhi Sultanate
Expedition beyond Delhi to the Ganges River Valley 206
Timur's decision to return and advance into Kashmir 209
Timur's Return and the Plan to Build Samarkand 214

Chapter 6.
A seven-year expedition to seize the throne of the Islamic world

Why Timur Launched a Seven-Year Expedition into Iran 225
Timur's expedition to Georgia and the surrender of Jani Beg Gruj 230
Timur's Expedition to Rum 233
Timur's Syrian Expedition 238
Expedition to Baghdad, Iraq via Diyarbakir 244
Wintering in Karabagh, Azerbaijan, 248
Battle with Ottoman Sultan Bayazid 253
Timur captures Ottoman Sultan Bayazid in 257
The attack of European powers on Rum and the death of his successor, Sultan Muhammad 264
Return from the room and advance to Georgia 269
Survey of each region of Iran and construction of Baylakan 274
The End of the Seven-Year Expedition and the Return to Samarkand 279
Epilogue.
Dreams of Conquering China and the Chaos After Death 284
The reason for planning the Kitai Expedition and Timur's departure 284
Timur's Death and the Ruling Class's Interests 289
Timur's coffin and his wives went to Samarkand, and his princes and emirs to Bukhara. 293
Amirzada Khalil Sultan's Entry into Samarkand and the Movement of His Descendants 297
Sahib Kiran's Family 300

Timurid Dynasty Genealogy 304
Chronology 305

clear
Kuregen and Sahibkiran, two titles of Timur 314
Sahib Kiran Timur 335 by Yazdi
Reconsidering the Historical Value of Yazdi's "Victory" 371
Manuscripts Used in Translation and Previous Research 399

Key Characters in "The Story of Victory" 418
Look up place names 424

“He conquered all the lands of the Mongol Empire in 36 years, taking even those places that Genghis Khan had failed to reach.”
The epic of Timur's victories

The Mongol Empire, reorganized into a four-generation ulus system in the late 13th century, proclaimed 'Pax Mongolia' for the next 100 years.
However, by the mid-14th century, the situation in the eastern and western parts of the empire had changed drastically, leading to its collapse in an instant.
In the east of the empire, civil wars between the Mongols continued for over a century over control of the Mongolian steppe after the Khan Ulus (Yuan) lost Dadu and Shangdu to Zhu Yuanzhang's forces in 1368.
In the West, the fall of Huleghuulus in 1335 was followed by the collapse of Chagataiulus and Jutsiulus.
In the place of the great world empire that disappeared, numerous powers emerged and rose and fell.
Among them, there were countries that claimed to be the 'successors of the Mongol Empire', and the most representative country was the Timurid Empire (1370-1507).


Timur, a member of the Barlas tribe, united several nomadic groups in Transoxiana (Mawra-an-Nahr) in 1369 and seized control of the Western Chagatai Ulus.
From then until his death on a Ming expedition in 1405, he traveled through the former territory of the Mongol Empire, conquering numerous countries, peoples, and regions.
The lands he conquered reached to the Karakhoja and Irtysh River basins of Xinjiang, China in the east, Izmir in western Anatolia in the west, Moscow and Kiev in the north, and Delhi in northern India in the south.
What is surprising is that this vast land was occupied in just 36 years.


Timur, who had expanded his power, immediately ordered several intellectuals to write a history book containing his achievements.
His descendants also sponsored the writing of historical records of Timur's victories as the founder of the new world empire, the most representative of which is the "Victory Chronicle" (?afar n?ma) by Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi.

A brutal murderer and destroyer of civilization, a descendant of Genghis Khan and the reincarnation of Alexander the Great?
Becoming a beacon of Islam with a new legitimacy called Sahibkiran

To us, Timur is known as the so-called 'lame destroyer'.
Many people remember him for his infamy, such as the anecdote that he built a spire with the heads of prisoners he captured in battle (this is true) and the curse on the world that was said to have been written on the lid of his coffin (this is not true).
Added to this was the tale of his heroic exploits in 1402, when he captured the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid, who had terrified Europe.
However, in today's Persian Islamic cultural sphere, Timur's name is more famous as the 'Timur Renaissance'.
This is because the culture, art, scholarship and knowledge that developed in the empire he established later became the starting point of the ‘Islamic cultural revival.’
Following Timur's expeditions, countless migrants from Transoxiana to Arabia, Anatolia, the Kipchak steppe, the Tarim Basin, Hormuz, and India spread the religion, culture, scholarship, and art of this new empire to all corners of the world.


Timur, who was not a descendant of Genghis Khan (Golden Clan), could not call himself Khan (Kh?n) and had to be content with the position of son-in-law (guregen). However, he was also called Amir (Am?r), meaning leader of the Muslims, and effectively reigned as a monarch.
At the same time, through the compilation of history books, he proclaimed that he had been commanded by God to conquer the world.
The fact that Timur tried to assert his legitimacy as a monarch proves, conversely, that the basis for the legitimacy claimed by previous monarchs was weak.
Thus, the new legitimacy granted to Timur was that of Sahib Qir?n, the monarch chosen by the sum of the heavenly palaces.


Sahibkiran was originally a term used in Persian literature to refer to a "world conqueror." It comes from a legend of a hero who was born on the day when the sacred planets Jupiter and Saturn were in the same constellation, conquered the world with courage and force, spread Islam widely, and practiced justice for all.
In his "Victory," Yazdi linked Timur's victories and conquests with the special legitimacy of the Sahibqiran, thereby proving that "Timur was the conqueror of the world, blessed by God."
For this purpose, the evidence he mobilized in 『Victory Chronicles』 is as follows.

① Timur's vast territorial conquest itself, which is the main content of the 『Victory Chronicle』
② Messages from mystical sciences such as astronomy, astrology, numerology, and messianism
③ Timur's justice and fairness that fit the image of a 'just monarch'

The various academic disciplines and ideas embedded here are a long-standing tradition of the Persian Islamic cultural sphere, and further developed during the Timurid Empire.
Therefore, 『The Chronicle of Victory』 can be said to be a historical book and also a source containing the essence of scholarship, art, and thought in the Persian region at the time.


Instead of a physics book, pick up a history book.
Walking the academic path of historical translation research

Yazdi's "Victory" was widely read in the Persian Islamic cultural sphere for hundreds of years.
Accordingly, there are a great number of extant copies (approximately 200 copies worldwide).
A total of four Persian publications have been published based on this manuscript.
One of them was published by photographing the original copy, and the other three are edited and revised versions of several copies.
Although there are many extant copies and book publishing was relatively active, there are not many translated versions.
Among them, the Turkic (Chagatai) translations were the earliest (1510, 1550, 1822–1823), and the first translation into a non-Islamic language was in 1722 by François P.
This is the French version of de la Croix.
The following year, John Darby translated the French version into English and presented it to Prince Frederick of England.
Other editions, such as the Uyghur edition (2007) and the Russian edition (2008), were published, but most of the existing translations were not complete.

In 2020, Lee Ju-yeon of the Department of Oriental History at Seoul National University received her doctorate for her research ("Translation and Notes on the 『Victory of the Battle』 (?afar-n?ma) by Yazdi, the Timurid Dynasty Chronicle"), which was the first complete translation of the entire 『Victory of the Battle』 in a non-Islamic language and included 3,160 footnotes.
The person who turned him, originally a physics student, to the path of studying Persian-language history was Professor Kim Ho-dong, famous as the “Great Khan of Mongol Empire History Research.”
After changing his major during his undergraduate studies and receiving a master's degree in Islamic Khanate studies in Xinjiang, China, he began translating "The Story of Victory" in 2015.
The scholarly journey of Professor Kim Ho-dong, who translated the complete 5-volume “The Steward of Rashid al-Din,” has been passed down to his last disciple.


『Timur's Victory』 is a condensed and edited version of Lee Ju-yeon's doctoral thesis in the form of a history textbook.
This book reconstructs the 336 stories that make up Yazdi's "Victory" into a prologue, epilogue, and six chapters according to the order of events and the development of the Timurid Empire.
When the chapter is set up like this, it is possible to more intuitively understand Timur's activities and the development of the empire.
Here, maps of Timur's expeditions and the expansion of his empire are added to each chapter, providing vivid geography of the region that is the central stage of the story: Arabia, Persia, Mawra'an-Nahr (Transoxiana), and the Moghul steppe.
The publication of this book, which includes a [Genealogy of the Timurid Dynasty], [Chronology], and [Major Characters in 『The Story of Victory』] at the end of the book, and even an "Annotation" which is another result of research on the translation of 『The Story of Victory』 historical materials, has enabled Korea to stay one step ahead of other countries in the world in the study and understanding of the Timurid Empire and 『The Story of Victory』.