As the constituent parts of the Mongol Empire began to separate in the early 14th century, various tribes competed for regional influence. Amongst them, Timur (also known as Tamerlane) was ultimately victorious. Like Genghis Khan before him, he would conquer an empire stretching from Asia Minor to Delhi, even venturing up into southern Russia before his death in 1405. Central Asia again became truly ‘central’ with the rise of Timur, the ruthless warrior and patron of the arts who fashioned a glittering Islamic capital at Samarkand.
Born near Samarkand, in the heart of Transoxiana, in 1336, he survived youthful trials, like Genghis Khan, to dominate his homeland by 1370. As there is only one God in Heaven, so there should be only one king on earth' was a chronicler's explanation of the fearless ambition that raged from India to Russia, smashing Urgench, Baghdad, Damascus, Herat and Delhi. Meticulous planning enhanced classic nomadic warfare, concluded by brutality on an unprecedented scale.
Timur made Samarkand his capital, and he rebuilt and expanded it with the finest artisans and materials his empire could offer. With the plunder and slave-artisans of conquered lands, Tamerlane raised his capital Samarkand to its greatest heights. He patronised scientists and other scholars, and Samarkand became a centre for intellectuals and for religion. Its architecture was the envy of the whole Islamic world.
The Timurid Empire did not survive long after Timur's death. On his death in 1405, en route to savage China, his fragile empire collapsed to its core: his son ruled eastern Persia and his grandson, Ulug Beg, ruled Samarkand but prioritised scholarship and, in particular, his personal pursuit of astronomy, over matters of state.
In 1449 Ulug Begs preference for science over politics and religion met Islamic reaction and a son bent on patricide. His nephew avenged him but soon fell to Tamerlane's great-grandson, Abu Said, helped by Uzbek khan Abul Khair. A descendent of Shayban, Genghis Khan's grandson, Abul Khair had united the nomadic Turco-Mongol tribes on the steppes of today's Kazakhstan. His grandson, Mohammed Shaybani, a brilliant warrior and poet who campaigned with a travelling library, eclipsed Timurid authority by seizing Khorezm, Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent by 1505. Tamerlane's great-great-great-grandson Babur fought back bravely until defeat, by Shaybani's relatives in 1512, sent him south to found the Mogul Empire in India.
Uzbek tribes seized much of central Asia, and Uzbekistan entered into a new era: that of the khanates. The khanates were regional kingdoms controlled by a khan, and the most powerful of these was the Khanate of Bukhara, ruled by the Shaybanid dynasty. A second khanate was established at Khiva, and a third in the Fergana Valley at Kokand.
Under Abdullah Khan, ruler of Bukhara from 1557 to 1598, the Shaybanid Uzbek dynasty, the last great empire of Transoxiana, reached its peak. A relative by marriage from Astrakhan succeeded him to form the Astrakhanid dynasty, while a Shaybanid branch ruled Khorezm from Khiva, following the demise of Urgench. During the 17th century, the Uzbek clans continued to settle into oasis life, merging with the earlier inhabitants, Turkic and Iranian (Tajik), until the name Uzbek was used for the whole population. The Turkmen and Karakalpaks to the east and the Kazakhs to the north retained the nomadic ways of stockbreeders.
The strength of Shi'ite Saffavids in Persia cut off Central Asia from the cultural and intellectual stimulus of the Sunni Islamic world. Declining caravan trade further isolated the region, for the Silk Road had succumbed to sea routes and robbers plagued merchants by land. The 17th and 18th centuries were a difficult period for Uzbekistan: Silk Road trade was in decline, and the strength of the Shi'ite Safavids in Iran had isolated central Asia from other Sunni territories in the Middle East. Bandits and slave traders plagued those caravans that did brave the steppe. In 1740 the Uzbeks had little answer to the artillery of Nadir Shah of Persia, who conquered all the major cities before leaving his protege to found the Mangit dynasty in Bukhara. The next occupation would not be so brief. Russian generals were starting to take a serious interest in tlie lands beyond their southern border.
When Peter the Great sent an expedition to Khiva in 1717, it was the first time Tsarist forces had officially set foot on Uzbek soil. They were slaughtered to a man, luil would certainly be back, first invited in as allies and protectors against rival khanates, and later as invading forces. Russian forces entered Tashkent (1865), Bukhara (1867) and Samarkand (1868); they all became Russian protectorates.