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A Disturbing Collection of History’s Most Brutal Rulers

Khalid Elhassan April 30, 2022 37 min

3. History’s Most Brutal Ruler?

If the question of who was history’s most brutal ruler was asked, many would assume it must have been Genghis Khan. However, while Genghis is one of history’s scariest people, he was not as lethal as an even deadlier medieval warrior: Tamerlane (1336 – 1405). Byname Timur Link, which means “Timur the Lame” in Turkish, Tamerlane was the last of the great Eurasian Steppe conquerors to terrify the civilized world with widespread devastation and butchery. He is chiefly remembered for his savagery, and his wide-ranging rampage, from India to Russia and the Mediterranean and points in between. Tamerlane is estimated to have exterminated about 17 million people, or about 5 percent of the world’s population at the time. That would be equivalent to almost 400 million people in 2022.

A medieval depiction of Tamerlane feasting in Samarkand. Wikimedia

A Muslim Turko-Mongol who claimed descent from Genghis Khan, Tamerlane was born in the Chagatai Khanate in today’s Uzbekistan. It was ruled by Genghis’ descendants at the time, and Tamerlane’s rise began in 1360, when he led Turkic tribesmen on behalf of the Chagatai Khan. However, the Khan was executed by rivals, and that triggered a struggle for power. When the dust settled, Tamerlane had emerged as the power behind a throne occupied by a figurehead Chagatai puppet, through whom Tamerlane ruled.

Also Read: How to Host Medieval Feast?

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.