Timur the Zoroastrian

Timur the Lame was a member of the tribe of Burlas, a powerful clan among the Mongol Hordes in the Chagatai Khanate. His father, Taraghay, was the first among this clan to convert to Islam. As Timur was aging from childhood to adolescence, it was only his father's devout hand that molded the young Timur into an unquestioning Muslim. But as Timur was readying his invasion of the Islamic world, or earlier, when he was a teenager questioning life, perhaps Timur saw the political advantage of rejecting Islam, of throwing off the bounds of a foreign faith, and of making his military invasion both a political takover and a relgious liberation all in one.

Zoroastrianism was the one monotheistic faith that had sprung up in that region. The Zoroastrians were also the most persecuted group in the Islamic world. They hailed Timur as Hero and Savior. And as in the days of the great emperors of old, Cyrus, Darius, and Chosroes, Zoroastrianism once again becomes the state reilgion of Persia and Central Asia, under Timur the Great.