Yes, my dear, but you might want to take another peek at the history books...

Submitted by J.S. (Canada), Nov 20, 2006 at 23:36

There's an interesting text entitled: "Tamerlane: Sword of Islam." Do you recall Tamerlane? he was known for piling up skulls into pyramids. At Amazon.com one reads: "From Publishers Weekly":

"By the time of his death in 1405, the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane--a pejorative derivative of the nickname 'Temur the Lame'--commanded as much land and fear as any ruler in history. Literally following in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan, he built his empire with one invasion after the next, eventually amassing a kingdom that stretched 'from Moscow to the Mediterranean, from Delhi to Damascus.'

Nonetheless, Tamerlane remains relatively unknown in the Western world, taking a historical backseat to Ghengis despite a reign and ruthlessness every bit as remarkable. Faced with such a complex and underreported subject, Marozzi [that's the author of the text being reviewed] delivers an exceptional account of the emperor's life, revealing him to be both an extravagantly merciless tyrant and tireless proponent for the cultural and architectural progress in his beloved Samarkand (in modern day Uzbekistan). One peculiar choice, however, is the book's subtitle, as Tamerlane killed tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims along his so-called 'pilgrimage of destruction,' including a particularly bloody massacre of Baghdad that left 90,000 dead, 'their heads cemented into 120 towers.'" Ah, yes, the wonders of Islam -- nay, the beauties of carnage. They say that Hitler was an admirer of Tamerlane...

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