Description
Khalil Sultan is a neglected figure. If he is recalled at all, it is as a rather foolish individual, reputed to have depleted Timur’s treasury and ruined the core provinces of his grandfather’s Empire because of his inordinate passion for his wife Shad Mulk. The present paper is not meant as an attempt at rehabilitating Khalil Sultan. Khalil’s fate will instead be analyzed as a case study to illustrate some of the central problems of any nomadic army, namely the questions of loyalty and efficiency. Timur died in February 1405 in Utrar, close to the Syr Darya, having made the first moves in what was planned to be the Great China Campaign. The army had set out very early in the year, without waiting for the weather (and, by the same token, the fodder situation) to become more appropriate. The large army he had brought together was composed of a wide variety of men coming from all parts of the Empire, one source giving the overall number of 200 000 mounted and foot warriors. Numbers, of course, are always subject to caution, but there can be no doubt that this was one of the greatest armies Timur ever fielded. These people were grouped into the habitual three corps, right and left wing and center. Timur’s own camp at Utrar was in the center, and with him were his most favored senior emirs, Shaikh Nur ad-din and Shah Malik. Mughal Library
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