ABSTRACT
Most newcomers find the history of the Muslim world a daunting subject because of the seemingly endless list of unfamiliar names and dates. There is no way round this problem but I shall do my best to cut you a clear path through the jungle. Already, in the previous chapters, you will have encountered allusions to three famous Islamic dynasties: the Seljuks, the Mamluks and the Ottomans. In this chapter, I shall refer to many more (although the list will be far from complete!) situating them approximately in time and place. Before beginning, however, let me mention SIX KEY DATES to help orientate you. In 622, Muhammad and his followers emigrated from Mecca to Medina. This date marked a turning point in the fortune of the Muslims. It subsequently came to be regarded as the beginning of the Islamic era (see Appendix 2). In 661, Muawiya, the first Umayyad Caliph, began to rule in Damascus, thereby bringing to an end the twenty-nine year period of the four ‘rightly-guided’ Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet. Unlike the old capital, Medina, which was a desert oasis, Damascus had been part of the Byzantine empire and was an historic centre of Graeco- Roman civilisation. The Umayyads adopted many of its cultural and administrative traditions. In 762, the Abbasids, who had overthrown the Umayyads thirteen years earlier, founded Baghdad as their new capital. The move signified more than a change in dynasty. Baghdad was situated not far from the former capital of the Persian empire, and the consequent eastward shift in the centre of power led to the orientalization of the Muslim empire with the Caliphs ruling as eastern potentates. In 1258, Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols. Although the caliphal power had been severely restricted for a large part of the previous three centuries – first by the Persian Buyids and then by the Turkish Seljuks – the havoc caused by the Mongols was unprecedented. The destruction of Baghdad and the assassination of the Caliph came as a severe blow to Muslims everywhere and put an end to the classical period of Arab and Islamic civilisation. From this time onwards, the Muslim heartlands were dominated by members of various Mongol and Turkish dynasties. Of the latter, the last and most famous were the Ottomans. In 1453, the Ottomans captured the Byzantine capital Constantinople. This marked their coming of age as an imperial power and paved the way for their creation of a vast empire extending to the frontiers of Morocco and Persia, and spilling over into Europe as far as the gates of Vienna, which they twice besieged. In 1571, the Ottoman fleet was defeated at Lepanto, at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, by the combined forces of Venice, Spain and the Papacy. Although the empire survived into the twentieth century, this crushing defeat nevertheless ushered in its gradual decline.
