Qara Yusuf - The Timurid Invasion

The Timurid Invasion

The Timurids began another campaign in 1400 and defeated both the Kara Koyunlu and the Jalayirids. Qara Yusuf and Sultan Ahmad Jelair both fled and took refuge with the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I. In 1402 they returned together with an army. However, once they had retaken control of Baghdad they quarrelled, and Qara Yusuf expelled Ahmad from the city. Ahmad took refuge with the Mamelukes, but they imprisoned him out of fear of Timur. In 1403 the Timurids drove Qara Yusuf out of Baghdad again. He too sought asylum with the Mamelukes, and was imprisoned by them along with Ahmad. Together in prison, the two leaders renewed their friendship, making an agreement that Ahmad should keep Baghdad while Qara Yusuf would have Azerbaijan. When Timur died in 1405 the Mamelukes released them both.

Qara Yusuf, having returned from exile in Egypt, went back to Azerbaijan, defeated the Timurid Abu Bakr near Nakhichevan, and reoccupied Tabriz (1406). Abu Bakr and his father Miranshah tried to recapture Azerbaijan, but on April 20, 1408, Qara Yusuf inflicted a decisive defeat on them in which Miranshah was killed. This battle, one of the most important in the history of the Orient, nullified the results of Tamerlane's conquests in the West.