northern Mesopotamia, Timur’s forces sought out refugees who hid in caves, setting fires and thus killing them by asphyxiation. Although by this point the Christian element of the population must have been quite small, Timur did consciously target non-Muslims, boasting of “washing the sword of Islam in the blood of the infidels.” Any Christian remnants in Samarkand and central Asia were finally destroyed by Timur’s grandson, Ulugh Beg. The Asian churches—Nestorian, Jacobite, and others—barely survived even in name.
