The Battle of Alinja () a battle between the Kingdom of Georgia with the Armenians, Shirvaneses and the North Caucasians against Timurid Empire. In 1398.
Background
During the Timur campaigns in the Caucasus, the only fortress in Nakhchivan, Alinja remained, which Timur could not take. Tahir, the prince of the Jalayrid dynasty, was locked in this prison, from where he continued to resist. Before he go to campaign in India, Timur handed over the Alinja fortress to his son Miranshah. The commander of Miranshah surrounded the fort with a high wall and stood guard so that no one could leave or enter the fort.
Battle
Giorgi VII with the Georgian, Armenian and the Shirvaneses army, brought warriors from the North Caucasus, Sayyid Ali of Shaki also allied with Giorgi VII, they marched to Nakhchivan. Georgians and their allies brutally defeated the besieged Timruids and expelled them from Nakhchivan. Giorgi VII liberated Tahir. All this was reported to Miran Shah in Tabriz, Miran Shah sent a huge army commanded by Seif ed din to Alinja. The Georgians were already returning, when they came across the Timurid army from Tabriz, Sayyid Ali of Shaki was killed in the battle, but the Georgians defeated the enemy.
Aftermath
This event prompted Timur to return, later in 1399, to inflict massive revenge on the general population of the region. He took Shaki and devastated the neighboring region of Kakheti.
In the spring of 1400, Timur moved back to destroy the Georgian state once and for all. He demanded that George VII should hand over the Jalayirid Tahir. George VII refused and met Timur at the Sagim River in Lower Kartli, but suffered a defeat and retreated deeper into the country, relentlessly chased by Timur. Timur destroyed the Georgian capital Tbilisi, left a garrison there, and laid siege to Gori, where George was entrenched. The king made a bold sortie westward, but having failed to thwart the enemy's advance at the fortresses of Dzami and Savaneti, fled to the inaccessible forests of western Georgia, where the armies of the Islamic ruler could not penetrate. Timur turned back in fury and thoroughly pillaged the rest of Georgia. This bloody campaign lasted for several months, with Timur's armies systematically moving from province to province. Virtually all major cities and towns were destroyed and their populations decimated; the countryside was burnt; monasteries and churches were systematically razed to the ground. Of those who survived the fighting and reprisals, many thousands died of hunger and disease, and 60,000 survivors were enslaved and carried away by Timur's troops.