The door to Germany and the European heartland would have been wide open to Islam if they’d succeeded. Then in 1529, and again in 1566, the Ottomans tried unsuccessfully to take Vienna. In 1526, with Bulgaria already under Muslim control, Sultan Suleiman added Hungary to his list of conquests. They made it their own capital.Īfter that a campaign to conquer the rest of Europe was all but inevitable. Finally, in 1453, the Turks gained the greatest prize of all - the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, now Istanbul. Athens, Bosnia and the Crimea soon fell into their hands. They defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. They grabbed Thessalonica from the Venetians in 1387.
In 1354, the Ottomans took advantage of civil war in the Byzantine Empire to seize the peninsula of Gallipoli on the European side of the Dardanelles, the long narrow strait that divides the Balkans from Asia Minor. The Ottomans entered Europe in the 14th century, imposing their rule on the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. They established an empire that at its height stretched from Hungary and southern Russia to Iran, Palestine, the Arabian peninsula, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and North Africa. The Ottoman Turks succeeded the Seljuks at the end of the 13th century. They conquered much of Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. In the 11th century, Seljuk Turks displaced the Arabs as leaders of the Muslim world. From the Muslim perspective, the defeat at Tours in 732 was a minor setback. They entered France in 721, raiding across the Pyrenees into the Aquitaine region, sacking Bordeaux and Poitiers as they headed for Paris. Over the next century, Muslim armies imposed faith by the sword on the Christian populations of Iraq, Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and Spain and Portugal. A people is already upon you, loving death as you love life.” If you refuse to do either, you have only yourself to blame. In the first Muslim foray into Christian Iraq, the Battle of Chains in 634, the Arab general Khalid ibn al Walid, offered the population an ultimatum: “Accept the faith (of Islam) and you are safe otherwise pay tribute. The basic idea was submit or die, or, if they were lucky, accept second-class status in Muslim societies. They began a campaign of conquest against the Byzantine Empire, the successor to the Roman Empire, and the Persians’ Sassanid Empire. After Mohammed’s death, his successors, including Abu Bakr, the first caliph and Mohammed’s father-in-law, pursued the Prophet’s idea that Islam must rule the world. He had been the ruler of a small sliver of land known as the Hijaz in what is now northwest Saudi Arabia. The Islamic tide began to rise in 632 when the Prophet Mohammed died in the holy city of Medina. Europe was only just emerging from the devastating religious wars that had pitted Catholics against Protestants. Even as late as the 17th century, there was little evidence Europeans would challenge that dominance. For nearly 1,000 years, Muslim rulers dominated much of the Mediterranean world and beyond. As writer Hilaire Bellow once said, it is “a date that ought to be among the most famous in history - September 11, 1683.” Never again would Muslims come so close to imposing Islam on Europe, at least until the 21st century. 11 and 12, 1683, Christian armies under the command of the King of Poland ended the Turks’ two-month campaign to take the city. Article contentĬonsider the defeat of the Ottoman Turks at the Siege of Vienna. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.National Capital Region's Top Employers.
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