The Nāṣirī Generations 248.2.5

248.2.5

The same natural enmity probably influenced Timur in some way, in after years, in his hostility towards the ’Usmanli Sultan, Bayazid, for Timur was of the Mughal I-mak, and of the royal tribe of the Mughals, whilst Bayazid was of the Tattar I-mak. To call a Turk, or a Tattar Turk, a Mughal was the greatest insult that could be offered him, or to call a Mughal a Tattar, but several European writers have held peculiar ideas respecting these two I-maks. I extract the following as a specimen, from a work entitled “Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c.,” by Xavier Hommaire de Hell. London, 1847. “Perhaps no people has given occasion to more discussions than the Tatars and Mongols, nor is the problem of their origin completely solved in our day, notwithstanding the most learned investigations. Some admit that the Tatars and Mongols formed but one nation, others allege that they are two essentially different races. According to Levesque, D’Herbelot, and Lesur, the Tatars are but Turks. Klaproth, while he asserts that the Tatars and Mongols spring from the same stock, nevertheless regards the White Tatars whom Genghis [Chingiz?] Khan conquered, as Turks.”