SOME TIME AFTER THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF ANKARA IN 1402, BETWEEN EMPEROR TAMERLANE AND SULTAN BAYEZID I…
The tapping of the Amir’s cane woke the Sultan. The previous night had brought with it a strange calm before the thunderstorm that would follow, another strike of the thousands of tribesman ravaging Anatolia one town after another. It had been three months since his humiliating defeat at Ankara, where Timur the Lame’s men captured him and his delegation without much fuss.
The Sultan sat up from the tent cushions he was laying in. His wrists hadn’t felt chains since Timur ordered them off shortly after his capture, but he still knew the stinging of the iron on his skin. The burning associated with extreme cold shook him — it was not a feeling meant for someone of his blood. The old man walked over, a zestful bounce to his step for one in a cane, and sat across from him.
“Assalamu Alaikum, Sultan.”
“Wa Alaikum.”
Timur raised a brow. “Oh…so many moons we’ve known each other, yet you insist on not returning the peace? To an old man nonetheless, and a cripple!”
“A cripple who imprisons me and my family…”
Bayezid wiped his eyes and looked down at his emerald ring. Unlike most prisoners who end up in the hands of Mongol hordes, he wasn’t stripped of the valuables on his person. Other than his armor, he remained in the same garments he’d been captured in other than the extra shawl given to him to withstand the chilly fall nights.
“It is Allah who grants freedom and takes it away. Perhaps if you’d woken up for the dawn prayer you could have prayed for it.”
“Why would I pray for that which I know for a fact you won’t give me? Besides, if your savage horsemen hadn’t kept me up beforehand, then I’d have the strength to rise for it.”
Timur laughed, “I tapped your side with my cane three times and you didn’t wake up. No excuse!”
Bayezid scoffed with a smirk, playing with his ring. He looked up at Timur and stared into his narrow eyes. “And what of my Olivera this morning? I wish to know how she fares.”
“My personal servant girl checked on her. She remains in good health, though refuses to speak still. Up from on your behind, we must continue our ghazwa!” he said, the roughness with which he said the sparse Arabic words he knew rubbing on the ears of Bayezid like steel on the grindstone.
Timur’s army, the great horde of Turkmen, Mongols, and Tatars that spanned the horizons of the Anatolian countryside continued heading west, meandering around where they knew of more bounties to be had. Bayezid was kept on a horse by Timur’s right, who rode alongside a few of his many sons and grandsons, some servants, and his chief advisor and religious chief — Imam Abdul-Jabbar al-Khwarizmi. He was a scholar of the Hanafi Islamic school of jurisprudence, a man of Timur’s generation, who in addition to knowing the entire Quran by heart and countless hadith, would tell many tales of war in older times from across Arabia, Persia, and the Levant. Often Timur asked him to recite the Quran aloud as they strode in their long marches, hundreds at the front falling in silence as his soothing voice echoed across the fields.
Other times Khwarizmi told them stories of the earlier conquests of the beloved Prophet, peace be upon him, or his great companions whom Timur adored and admired. Bayezid knew it all of course, but was stunned at the matter in which Timur and his Mongols interpreted certain events from the Prophet’s صلى الله عليه وسلم life. Their favorite story, as Timur said twice to him during his captivity (he’d forgotten he’d told it to him the first time), was the time the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم ordered the execution of every adult male of the Banu Quraidha tribe for their treachery during the Battle of the Trench against the polytheists, with every woman and child taken captive to be either ransomed off or enslaved. Bayezid understood it from his teacher as a special circumstance — a fate reserved for those who break their oaths — but to Timur and his men, this represented the standard, as all whom he besieged and stacked the skulls of had betrayed Allah, His Messenger, and that Messenger’s nation by not submitting to him; the one with the real mandate to rule.
Bayezid was too despondent the first time Timur told him of it, but the second time he had built up the will to object, “I hate to be the one to tell you, Amir of Samarkand, but despite your belief in Allah and his Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم, you insist on the habits of your non-believing ancestors. Did your Imam not recite to you the verse in Surah al-Baqarah: ‘Allah bestows kingship on whom he wills’? It is indeed possible for a man to be qualified in every manner — to be of noble blood, as I am for example, to be granted riches and palaces, strength of body and mind, the love and admiration of the rest of mankind that inspires them to die for him — as both of us have — and yet still not gain kingship at all if he is not virtuous and fearful of Allah with whom he rules.”
Timur listened when Bayezid spoke, a nod given each time the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم or his companions were mentioned. He remained quiet for a minute, none daring to answer on his behalf.
“Is this how you justify your defeat, Bayezid? Do you recite these verses out of genuine contemplation, or do you seek to deflect blame for the loss of your freedom at my hands? We could have avoided this. I wrote to you repeatedly to return my enemies whom you hosted despite my objections, and if you had and submitted, there would be love and peace between us. There is Allah’s will indeed, but what of man’s responsibility to his kith and kin? I found no trouble at all when your Turkmen defected from your ranks and joined mine. May I remind you of the time our dear Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was in the thicket of battle with his enemies at Hunayn, and said those famous words: ‘I am the Messenger, without doubt, I am the son of Abdul-Muttalib!’ When his ranks were shaken, it was his shared blood with the Arabs he reminded them of that restored their courage. You claim to have surrendered to God’s will in this matter, but what use does such submission have when done without man’s common sense for the world around him, which runs on blood and gold? It is like the man at the mosque whom our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم advised: Tie your camel, then go inside and pray! What you have done instead, my dear Sultan, was carelessly let your camel loose upon my fields, then cried and complained when I took possession of it! My offer still stands, dear Sultan. Pledge your lands to me, and I’ll turn this army north to return you and your family to Edirne myself!”
They were in the final leg of their journey across Anatolia, to lay siege to Smyrna, now in the hands of the Christians. Out of nowhere, Timur decided they should have a feast to celebrate their endless victories thus far. Their camp was quickly prepared for the occasion, a center table set up for the Amir, his family, and his greatest generals. Bayezid, much to his surprise, was taken out of the prisoner’s tent and directed to sit across from Timur at that very table. He caught many stares and wicked smiles from the Mongols as the celebration went underway. A number of bloody duels took place, wrestling matches, even some dancing. Before food was allowed to be served, however, Timur ordered Khwarizmi to open the occasion with a prayer for their good health and prosperity. All fell silent as he read some verses from the Quran raising his hands to the heavens, saying the prayer in Arabic first, then Chagatai. There was no translation to the Turkish of Bayezid. The food was put out, mostly scavenged and looted from raids as well as some wild game caught on the march. The servant girls rushed past, going back and forth with the food and drink in a shaking hurry as if their lives were at stake.
Bayezid smiled at their nervousness, but the entertaining sight did nothing to calm his own nerves. He looked over to Timur who did not eat much, which was unusual. The Amir was an old man, but ate plentiful for one so energetic, yet to retire from the thrill of warfare. Bayezid found the calm to begin eating, realizing the food wasn’t much better than what he was served the entire three months he’d been captive.
As he ate, he noticed all at once a commotion ensuing around him. It seemed everyone was looking either to the front of the table, or to himself. It took one glance to see why.
Bayezid’s heart dropped. Worse still, it felt as if it were ripped out of his rib cage and cut into a thousand pieces. A sense of burning and discomfort worse than any rusted chain overtook his head and chest, he felt he could drop dead in an instant. He didn’t even have the strength to say her name aloud, let alone yell it in a bout of righteous gheerah, for indeed his throat clenched up from the shock.
Olivera walked along the side of the table with her chin held high, in her same Ottoman garments, holding a bottle of wine. She came beside Timur, and that’s when it happened. She looked Bayezid right in the eye as she poured in his enemy’s cup, the unmistakable scorn pouring out of her gaze in kind. Timur sat with a neutral face at first, but upon seeing the color drain from Bayezid’s face he instead spoke to him with just the wrinkles of his forehead as if to say: do you see clearly now, who you argued so hard to protect?
For the remainder of the feast, Bayezid wouldn’t utter a word nor consume another morsel. His hands weren’t even seen on the table again. When it was time to retire from the celebration, Bayezid followed the guards with no protest and his eyes to the floor. Olivera was sent back to her own tent, similarly despondent despite receiving her request in full.
The morning came and out climbed Timur from his covers for the dawn prayer. A servant arrived with a bucket of water as the Amir pushed aside the concubine at each side of him. He performed the ritual washing, then went out in the breeze over to the prisoner’s tent. He entered upon Bayezid, who once again was asleep. He knocked him with his cane, nothing. He did it twice more, except the third time it was done with enough force that Bayezid turned — and Timur saw his blue lips. He fell to his knees and felt the Sultan’s cold skin, and screamed immediately for the servant to fetch his personal doctors. In the time it took for them to come, Timur looked down and noticed Bayezid’s ring. The gemstone was gone, a half-drop of dark liquid still moist upon the signet. He was driven to such a rage that he broke his cane against the back of one of the guards outside the tent.
The army did not move for hours as they awaited further orders. Before further commotion was drawn up, a command came. The entire delegation of the late Sultan was to be released, with Olivera herself to be escorted on her own to the lands of the north. Ahead of her and her escort, a horseman was sent with a letter of introduction to Prince Stefan of Serbia.
When their journey resumed, nothing but the hooves of horses would be heard at the front of the march. No Quran, no hadith, no stories. Timur rode quietly as he soon saw the high castle walls of Smyrna on the horizon. Still, he could not think of how to conduct the siege. How absurd, he thought, the fate that Allah had ascribed to the wicked and mendacious creatures He had formed called “humans”, and how frivolous their wants were. His foe was not a dumb or weak man. The Sultan had won every battle he’d fought before he’d encountered Timur, he was an appreciator of poetry and Islamic knowledge like himself, and of noble blood. Yet despite it all, he was as blind to the hatred of one so important to him as an old farm dog. How could such a man conquer so much, yet remain so ignorant, Timur thought.
Then, he began to laugh. He laughed harder than he had in months. Maybe it’s just as outrageous, Timur the Lame thought, that a crippled boy would go on to conquer the lands of his fathers, all of Khorasan, the Levant even, in less than the average man’s lifetime. How truly worthless this world is, as you have said oh Allah, if this is how gold and land are distributed amongst your creation. How utterly worthless!
Timur ghazi realized what he chased was far greater. The reason for his gallivanting, his insistence on riding and fighting as a crippled old man, razing a miniature hell wherever he saw fit — he needed an escape into the world that was eternal, heaven or hell it may be, that unlike this one actually meant something to his Creator. When he reached Smyrna, he laid siege to the Knights of Rhodes in their sea-castle for two weeks and breached their outer wall. The garrison and its inhabitants were destroyed completely, and each knight who withstood the siege was beheaded.
The fourth son of the late Bayezid, Mehmed, became Timur’s vassal. In the year 1402 the Amir began his return to Samarkand. Armenia, the Levant, and Georgia had not yet recovered from their razing. Baghdad was conquered, twice. When he finally reached home, Timur spent nine months celebrating his victories. He was the master of Asia.