And Mackenzie's half-brother, Tamerlane, the follower of an Indian guru, is having none of it.

CNN: John Phillips had checkered, sometimes sordid, life

"A lot of people have passed through this country the Byzantines, the Muslims, Tamerlane, the Mongols, the Ottomans, " said Mr. Haddad, seated in the shadow of the convent of St.

WSJ: Can Syria's Christians Survive?

From Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmonov, with his celebration of Tajikistan's Aryan, pre-Islamic past, to Uzbekistan's adoption of Tamerlane as the nation's founder (even though he was not an Uzbek), these efforts have proved divisive.

ECONOMIST: Central Asia's five stans

For all the architectural crimes Soviet rule inflicted on the city depressing gruel textured tower blocks among them the glittering fist of the great Timur (aka Tamerlane), who raised Samarkand again after Genghis Khan had lain it to waste in 1220, is still discernible.

ECONOMIST: Letter from Samarkand

Despite this zeal for destruction, Justin Marozzi finds a surprising amount of good to say about the Central Asian conqueror usually known in the West as Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, a corruption of Temur-i-lang, or Temur the Lame not a name that anyone, surely, would have dared use to his face.

ECONOMIST: Tamerlane: Lame but never halting | The