What’s in a name?
Throughout history, parents have named their children after people they admire. By way of example, for 2,000 years the name John has been the most popular name given to boys in Christianized countries. This has been out of admiration for the Apostle John. John faithfully remained at the foot of the cross while Jesus hung there, slowly dying in agony. John was the only man to do so. Likewise, millions of Christian boys have been named Michael over the past two millennia in honor of Michael the Archangel who defended God while others apostatized.
On the list of world history’s all-time greatest conquerors, you will find, in order of territory conquered, these three names at the top: Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Tamerlane. Everyone reading this has heard of the first two. At first, you might think that you’ve never heard the name Tamerlane. But you have. You’ve heard it incessantly for two straight weeks.
The name of the older of the two Boston bombing brothers was Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s parents admired the conqueror, Tamerlane, sufficiently to name their eldest son after him — just as so many Christian parents have named their sons after the Apostle John or Michael the Archangel — perhaps it is worth our while to ask the question: Who was Tamerlane? The answer will assuredly provide a view into the values and culture of the bomber’s family.
Tamerlane did his warring in the late 14th and very early 15th centuries in central Asia. He was, in a single word, merciless. Before entering Dehli, India, for example, he executed 100,000 captives at the city’s gates. On his way out of Baghdad, he executed 20,000 citizens. He killed at least another 100,000 denizens of a Persian city that dared to rebel against his tax collectors. These are but examples; Tamerlane’s other atrocities were many and myriad. Tamerlane had a penchant for building pyramids with the heads of those he slaughtered. He could build a good tower with about 1,500 heads, and he built dozens at a time. One set of scholars has estimated Tamerlane ordered the killing of a full five percent of the world’s population at the time. The equivalent today would be about 350,000,000 deaths.
Historians believe Tamerlane’s malevolence and savagery served a specific purpose. That is, Tamerlane’s brutality allowed him to easily manage his subjects by keeping them cowed in fear and also compelled many of his would-be opponents to simply surrender rather than face annihilation. This strategy is the very definition of terrorism and it worked on a grand scale for Tamerlane. By the time of his death, Tamlerlane’s domain included vast expanses of territory reaching from what is now Turkey to near China, an area that included countries like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, and much of the rest of central Asia. He conquered parts of Russia on one end and Dehli on the other.
Oh, yes. Tamerlane also billed himself as The Sword of Islam.
What does Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name tell us about his origins? A lot.
The Settlement Observer is a resident of Farmington.
