Envy and Orientalism in Embajada a Tamorlán

Embajada a Tamorlán (1403) chronicles the three-year travels of a Castilian embassy led by Ruy González de Clavijo. The party's goal was to establish diplomatic ties with the Turco-Mongol emperor, Tamerlane, also known as Timur (1336-1405), in present-day Uzbekistan. Timur had previously defeated the Ottoman Turks during their siege of Constantinople, staving off the end of the Byzantine Empire for another 50 years. While Timur dies before an agreement is signed with the Spanish embassy, this resulting detailed account rivals Marco Polo's Il Milione. This article argues that Embajada reflects a nuanced view of the Orient rooted in Iberia's intimate connection with Islam. The work divides the Orient into three different regions that reflect unique attitudes toward distinct groups of Christian and Muslim religious Others. The epistemological borders between these different groups are delineated by contrasting portrayals of urban space and in-fighting. While at first these seem to cast Timur as a worthy of Western envy, Embajada undermines this by depicting him as both chronologically and geographically outside of Christian history, thus re-writing the ruler as an impressive yet ephemeral character. This strategy allows the text to attain a positional superiority (to borrow Edward Said's term) in the face of superior Muslim cultural production.