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Taking advantage of the weakness of Iran after the demise of the Il-Khans, Timur conducted a vicious war of conquest, which resulted in near total control of Iran by the end of the fourteenth century. His death in 1405 meant an end to Timurid military expansion, but his heirs developed into some of the most gifted and inspired patrons of art, learning, and culture in Islam's history. Among them Timur's grandson, Ulugh Beg, ranks high. As governor of Samarqand under his father Shah Rukh, he made the city a center of scholarship and patronage of Islamic culture. He was himself known as a poet, historian, scholar of the Qur'an, and highly gifted astronomer. His actual reign (1447- 1449) was short and ineffectual, terminating in an assassination probably engineered by his son. On the obverse of this coin, issued in Samarqand in the last year of his rule, is the Muslim profession of faith. written in an angular and archaic Kufic, similar to that found on much Timurid architecture. The reverse, giving the date, place of issue, and the hapless monarch's name, is inscribed less formally and less regularly in a very rounded cursive script. |
