I Got Nerd Problems
As readers of this blog may have sussed out, I have become fascinated by history. It feels like a natural state for a nerdy Western man who just turned 60. Fot the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about the nomadic conquerors of medieval Asia. Peoples such as the Mongols, the Gokturks, etc. Eventually all those civilisations fell, mostly because the settled civilizations like China, various Persian states, and the Ottomans (who descended from earlier steppe nomads) got guns, against which mounted horsemen were no match.
One of these nomadic conquerors who fascinates me is Timur the Lame, a ruthless killer from Transoxiana who conquered a huge empire that stretched from Ankara to New Delhi. Timur was a devout Muslim who slaughtered millions of other devout Muslims. He supported scholars and artists. grabbing them up from the cities he coquered and shipping back to his capital, Samarkand. One of these scholars was a Damascene writer named Abu Muhammad Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Ibrahim, but better known as Ibn Arabshah. He was in Damascus when Timur conquered it. (This conquest included burning 30,000 people alive.) Timur acquired Ibn Arabshah for his personal collection of scholars and artists, and Ibn Arabshah wrote a biography of Timur called Aja'ib al-Maqdur fi Nawa'ib al-Taymur or The Wonders of Destiny of the Ravages of Timur. I long to read this book.
However, it is not in my local library (which kind of sucks, alas). My alma mater’s library has a copy, but not being a student, I can’t check it out. I would happily buy a copy, but all copies I see online at Amazon, Alibris, Abebooks, etc. are over a hundred dollars. I want to read it, but not that bad.
Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) wrote, “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” Even now, on the precipoce of the extinction of books, I feel the same way. But $112 is a bridge too far. Ah, the pleasures and agonies of being an aging nerd!
Two of my readers helped me find copies of Tamerlane—the edition pictured above. It turns out that by becoming a “Friend of Fondren Library”, Reader and fellow Rice alum David McClain told me this. I get a library card and can check out books from Rice University’s library. But best of all, a reader named Ankit Sethi pointed me to a Google Doc version of the book.
Thanks very much Ankit and David!
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