Georgia, a Christian kingdom in the Caucasus, was subjected, between 1386 and 1403, to several disastrous invasions by the armies of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, whose vast empire stretched, at its greatest extent, from Central Asia into Anatolia. These conflicts were intimately linked with the wars between Timur (Tamerlane) and Tokhtamysh, the last khan of the Golden Horde and Timur’s major rival for control over the Islamic world. Timur officially proclaimed his invasions to be jihad against the region's non-Muslims. Although he was able to invade parts of Georgia, he was never able to make the country Muslim and even recognized Georgia to be a Christian state.