Main articles: Mongol Empire, Barlas, and Chagatai
Timur was born in Transoxiana, near Kesh (an area now better known as Shahr-e Sabz, 'the green city,'), situated some 50 miles south of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan. His father Taraghay was the head of the Barlas, a nomadic tribe in the steppes of Central Asia. They were remnants of the original Mongol invaders of Genghis Khan of whom many had embraced Turkic or Iranian languages and customs.
The spurious genealogy on his tombstone taking his descent back to Ali, as well as the presence of Shiites in his army, led some observers and scholars to call him a Shiite. However, his official religious counselor was the Hanafite scholar Abd alJabbar Khwarazmi. There is evidence that he had converted to extremist Shia Nusayri sect under the influence of Sayyed Barakah, a Nusayri leader from his mentor, Balkh. He also constructed one of his finest buildings at the tomb of Ahmed Yesevi, an influential Turkic Sufi saint who was doing most to spread Sunni Islam among the nomads.