确实挺有意大利文艺复兴内味的
The fifteenth century saw the slow disintegration of the empire roughly assembled through the military conquests of Timur (d. 1405), ultimately dividing Iran (as so often in the past) into independent realms to the East and West of the central kavir. While the Timurids retained their hold on Khorasan and Transoxiana, the west was lost to the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu Turkmen regimes. Both polities were the heirs of the Chinggisid dispensation and, despite their political rivalries, grappled with the same questions of legitimacy and exemplify the same process of combining the ‘steppe’ notions of rule with Perso-Islamic concepts and a centralized bureaucracy with powerful autonomous apanage holders. The period also witnessed popular challenges to Sunni religious orthodoxy and a renewed emphasis on the scholarly achievements of the past. In the meantime, a great cultural florescence, partly born of the rivalry of competing courts, notably at Herat, Samarqand, Tabriz, Shiraz and Baghdad, make the fifteenth century a byword for great artistic, literary and scientific activity.
帖木儿帝国的四代目兀鲁伯的学术热情,使撒马尔罕成了“比大法尔斯(泛指所有波斯文化圈)任何地方还要高水平的数学科研基地”,他的天文台大家也是耳熟能详
呼罗珊的帖木儿统治者忽辛·拜哈拉统治下的赫拉特,也是个汇集众多财经和工程人才的繁荣城市,大有一个朝内亚的大金融中心发展的趋势
在忽辛·拜哈拉统治的末期,甚至有一位叫做穆罕默德·哈菲兹·伊斯法罕尼的波斯工程师,成功替帖木尔宫廷仿造出了欧洲制造的机械钟并加以改进(这批钟由奥斯曼苏丹巴耶济德二世获得,但苦于无人可以成功仿制,遂派遣使者将这些钟作为礼品赠送给东方的穆斯林诸君主,期望在穆斯林世界可以找到成功仿制出来的人)
可以说帖木尔的文艺复兴确实一度给包括河中在内的波斯地区带来了繁荣的科技文化,然后呢?就没有然后了
地理上的阻隔让几个“科研基地”和“金融中心”相比同时期的意大利更像是大海中的孤岛,帖木尔帝国分裂后的城市精英们不得不依附于互相割据的地方游牧军头,尽管帖木尔的统治者确实在努力推进种养几圈化和定居文化,但政治上的不稳定很容易让一切积累付之东流,比如赫拉特的拜哈拉政权后继者被乌兹别克人取代就是个例子
更不用说,我们今天之所以能够看到默罕默德·哈菲兹仿制机械钟的成就,是从发现他的手抄本残卷里知道的,在没有相对稳定的政局也没有点出印刷术来加持的时代,这种成果很容易就被湮没,只靠统治者自身的热情,是维系不了的
(当然,精密器械的工艺方面,这个时候的差距已经不小了,只能说西欧确实跑在了其他文明前头)