Christopher Marlowe’s character, Tamburlaine the Great, bears some uncanny similarities to the historical Timur as he was portrayed in Arabic accounts. These similarities may well be the results of the keenness of Marlowe’s insight, of the extraordinary fertility of his imagination. However, we must also consider that Marlow might have studied with scholars of Hebrew and Arabic, converted Jews who had migrated to England and who would have been able to make the historical Timur accessible. In particular scholars such as Franciscus Raphelengius would have known Timur through the most authoritative texts of the time. Did these travelling translators, who would have known, for example, Ibn ‘Arabshah’s biography of Timur, somehow convey their knowledge to Marlowe, who then used it in order to create his Tamburlaine? The textual similarities are provocative indeed; they suggest that Marlowe’s great creation might be, at least in part, the result of travel and translation.