"Timur undertook many of his campaigns in the interest of religious order, and we find that almost all mentions of Sharia in [Nizan al-Dim] Shami's Zafarnameh occur as justification for Timur's conquests. His campaigns against the kings of Georgia, the Shi'ite sayyids of Amul in Mazandaran [a province in northern Iran], and the non-Muslim populations on his route to India were all ostensibly taken for the preservation of Sharia; and Shami even invoked the sanctions of religion in explaining Timur's campaigns against the Ottomans. Before beginning his campaigns in the Middle East, Timur took care to get the blessing of Muslim men of religion."