Timeline of Conflict between Muslim and Christian / Western Powers

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[edit] Introduction

A timeline of the conflict between Muslim and Christian / Western powers between 632 and 1924 does not tell the whole story of the relationship between Muslims and Christians. Yet, as can easily be seen from the actual timeline presented below, conflicts do play an important role due to the expansive drive of the Muslim empires. However, as can also be seen, neither the Muslim nor the Christian camp was always monolithic in their mutual antagonism: there were alliances between those who believed differently against those who professed the same religion, much like during the Thirty-Years War in 17th-century Europe.

Much more detail could have been added. However, the modest purpose of this timeline is simply to provide a rough overview over nearly 14 centuries of major political and military developments that shape today's world and provide a context also for Martin Luther's comments on Islam.

[edit] The Situation at the Death of Mohammed (632)

When Mohammed (born in about 570) died in 632, his followers were in control of most of the Arabian Peninsula. He was succeeded by his close companion and first Muslim outside of Mohammed’s family, Abu Bakr, the first caliph (that is, successor of the messenger, that is, Mohammed). Due to dissension in the Muslim camp following the death of Mohammed, Abu Bakr first had to wage wars on the Arabian Peninsula to reunify the Muslims under one leadership, the so-called Ridda-Wars ("apostasy wars") of 632/33.

At the same time, the Christian Byzantine Empire ruled over modern-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt and much of Northern Africa. However, the territories of Turkey, the Caucasus region, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt had just recently been reconquered by the Empire after the defeat of the Persian Sassanid Empire in the Battle of Nineveh in 627. This century-long last stage of the over seven centuries-long conflict between the Roman and Persian Empires left both empires economically and militarily exhausted. The stage for the quick spread of the Arab empires under the successors of Mohammed was set.

[edit] Rashidun Empire (632-661)

633 – Battle of Hira: Muslim Arabs defeat the Christian-Arab Lakhmids who were vassals of the Persian Sassanids

634 – Damascus is conquered

636 – Battle of Yarmouk in SW Syria: Muslim-Arab army defeats a numerically superior mixed Byzantine army that also included Christian Arabs, the Ghassanids who were Byzantine vassals (though Monophysite Christians)

637 – Jerusalem conquered

638 – Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem (a Christian Arab, b. 560) dies

639-46 – Battle for Egypt lost to the Muslim Arabs

643 – Cyprus conquered

648 – Libya conquered

[edit] Umayyad Empire (661-750)

676-749 – Arab-Christian theologian John of Damascus; at his father’s death, he inherits his position as chief councilor of the Umayyad rulers of Damascus

674-78 – First Arab siege of Constantinople; first use of “Greek Fire” by the Byzantine Navy

680 -- Battle of Karbala (Iraq): troops of Umayyad caliph Yazid I defeat supporters of Mohammed's grandson, Husain ibn Ali, thereby ending his quest to restore the caliphate to the family of the prophet; founding event for Shiite Islam with its emphasis on suffering and martyrdom

692 – Armenia conquered

698 – Carthage conquered

711 – Spanish peninsula conquered

717 – Second Arab siege of Constantinople: further advances of Muslim Arabs west are halted for the time being

717? -- First mosque built in Constantinople

717? – “Pact of Umar:” an edict governing the relations between Muslims and the ahl al-kitab, the people of the book (Jews and Christians) in lands conquered by Muslim armies (the dhimmi pledge loyalty to Muslim rulers, act with deference to Muslims, exercise religion in private, pay special poll tax, jizya), possibly inspired by earlier Byzantine and Persian laws governing the status of religious minorities in their realms

732 – Battle of Tours (ca. 150 miles SW of Paris, France): Frankish leader, Charles Martel, defeats Umayyad Arabs who, however, retain control over southern France till 975

750 – Battle of the Zab (Iraq): Umayyad dynasty wiped out by founder of Abbasid dynasty (with support from non-Arab Muslims (esp. Persians), even Shiites); survivors make it to Muslim Spain (al-Andalus)

[edit] Abbasid Empire (750-1258)

762 – Baghdad becomes new capital of the caliphate under the Abbasids, replacing Damascus, the main city of the Umayyads

9/10th Centuries -- Translation of ancient secular Greek texts (philosophy, medicine, science, etc.), obtained from Byzantium where they had fallen into disuse, into Arabic by Abbasids and in Muslim Spain

824 – Crete conquered

860 -- Vikings plunder Constantinople

910 -- Fatimid Empire (Shiite counter-caliphate) established in Egypt

929 – Surviving Umayyad ruler in Spain proclaims himself caliph and Cordoba as new capital of the Islamic world

960 – Crete reconquered by the Byzantines

995 – Emperor Basil II manages to recapture some of Syria for the Byzantine Empire

1054 – The pope of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate each other

[edit] Seljuk Era

1071 – Battle of Manzikert (then an important trading post in Armenia, now in eastern Turkey) lost by Byzantines to the Seljuks (Turks originating in Central Asia); death of Emperor Romanus Diogenes in battle; begin of the Seljuk-Turkish presence in modern Turkey; during the ensuing civil war in Byzantium, pretenders seek to enlist the help of the Turks with various promises of land to them

1084 – Antioch in Syria is conquered as last Byzantine bastion in the area

1091 – Seljuk siege of Constantinople beaten back

1094 – Emperor Alexius Comnenus asks Pope Urban II to send troops and weapons to aid the Byzantines against the Turks

1095 – Urban calls for first crusade to liberate the Holy Land and support the Byzantines

1096 – Crusaders arrive at Constantinople; agreement is that all Byzantine towns recaptured by the crusaders were to fall back to the Byzantine emperor

1097 – Joint military campaign in Anatolia manages to recapture about the north-western half of modern Turkey for the Byzantines

1098 – Antioch in Syria captured by the crusaders; as a result of betrayal by one of the crusaders, the alliance between Byzantium and the Western crusaders breaks up

1099 – Crusader army reaches and conquers Jerusalem, many Muslim and Jewish inhabitants killed; so-called crusader states including the Kingdom of Jerusalem, are established from Syria to southern Israel

1099 – Battle of Ascalon: crusaders defeat a Fatimid relief army sent from Egypt to recapture Jerusalem, Palestine

1144 – Seljuk governor Zengi conquers Edessa, capital of the crusader state in northern Syria with largely Armenian Christian population (but Latin, previously Greek Orthodox rulers); this prompts the Second Crusade

1146 – Nur ad-Din (son of Zengi) continues his father’s attacks on crusader states in Syria

1169 – Saladin charged with defending Egypt against crusader incursions

1171 – The last Fatimid (Shiite) caliph of Egypt dies; Saladin engineers transition of loyalty to Abbasid (Sunni) caliph of Baghdad

1174 – Nur ad-Din dies; Saladin pronounces himself sultan (i.e., sovereign ruler) of Egypt (Ayyubid Dynasty) and restores Sunni Islam there; stretches his rule to Libya and Sudan

1185 – End of Komnenian Restoration (quite large regains on Balkans and in Anatolia under emperors of Byzantium of the dynasty of the Komnenians)

1187 – Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats crusaders and recaptures Jerusalem from them without committing atrocities against non-Muslim population

1192 – Treaty of Ramla: Christians granted free access to holy sites in Jerusalem

1204 – Sack of Constantinople by the knights of the Fourth Crusade (originally dispatched to reach Palestine via Egypt); establishment of the Latin Empire there, including Greece and Crete

1218-19 -- Crusaders of the Fifth Crusade, after entering into an alliance with the Seljuks of Anatolia against the Ayyubids of Syria, successfully besiege the Egyptian port city of Damietta; Francis of Assisi negotiates with Muslim sultan al-Kamil; rivalries between papal and secular forces after the fall of Damietta

1221 -- Crusaders' army marching on Cairo defeated after Ayyubids defeated Seljuk sultan

1229 – Based on a 10-year peace treaty between Emperor Frederick II and Sultan al-Kamil, members of the Sixth Crusade regain Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth

1229-31 -- Frederick excommunicated

1243 – Mongols invade Anatolia, effectively ending the Seljuk threat to Constantinople, only to be followed by the Ottoman Turks lead by Osman (1258-1326), one of the nobles of the disintegrating Seljuk Sultanate

1244 -- Jerusalem lost again

1249 -- Crusaders under Louis IX of France (Seventh Crusade) conquer Damietta in Egypt for a short time; the king is captured in 1250 by the Egyptian Mamluks who release him for a significant ransom

1250 -- First Mamluk sultanate in Egypt

1258 – Baghdad sacked by Mongols; end of Abbasid Caliphate as a political power factor, beginning of the "shadow caliphate" (an Abbasid held the post under the political power of the Mamluks in Egypt until their defeat by the Ottomans in 1517)

1261 – Constantinople reconquered by the Byzantines, end of the Latin Empire of Constantinople

[edit] Ottoman Empire (1299-1922)

[edit] 14th Century

1354 – Earthquake of Gallipoli: the peninsula opposite Anatolia is devastated by an earthquake, abandoned by its Greek (Christian) residents, and occupied by Ottoman Turks from Anatolia, thus giving them the first foothold on the European continent

1371 – Battle of Maritsa: Serbian-Bulgarian army defeated by smaller Ottoman army

1389 – Battle of Kosovo: Serbia defeated

1396 – Battle of Nicopolis: Hungarian army defeated, peace-treaty signed

[edit] 15th Century

1402 – Battle of Ankara: Ottomans defeated by Mongols, leading to a period of chaos in the empire till 1413, during which many Christian nations on the Balkans managed to break free from Turkish rule

1423 – Siege of Constantinople; war against Venice begins (till 1432)

1428-30 – Peace between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire

1439 – Council of Florence: establishes church union between Rom and Constantinople, healing the rift existing since the mutual excommunications of 1054; the Byzantine emperor, John VIII, accepts it, but the hierarchy of the Eastern Church rejects it

1439 – Serbia becomes Ottoman province

1443 – Peace of Szeged: 10-year peace treaty between Sultan Murad II and King Ladislaus III of Poland-Hungary

1443-1444 – Crusade of Varna: string of battles between Hungarian troops and temporarily weakened Ottoman Empire, proclaimed by Pope Eugene IV, culminating in Battle of Varna

1444 – Battle of Varna (on the Black Sea, at the time held by the Byzantines): Murad II defeats Polish-Hungarian army under Ladislaus III and Janos Hunyadi that had attacked him, urged by Cardinal Cesarini

1443-1479 – resistance of Albanians, first led by George Skanderbeg (he, a convert to Islam, first served in the Ottoman army, but switched sides in a 1443 battle against the Hungarians, after which he also renounced his conversion)

May 29, 1453 – Fall of Constantinople (conquered by Sultan Mehmed II, son of Murad II); end of the Byzantine Empire

1460 – Ottoman conquest of Athens

1475 – Battle of Vaslui: Ottomans defeated by smaller Moldavian army

1480 – Battle of Otranto: an Ottoman fleet lands in Italy and captures city of Otranto (on the south-easternmost tip of the Salento Peninsula, the heel of the boot that is Italy) for a short time

1492 – Cordoba taken back from Muslim rulers; reconquest of Iberian Peninsula concluded; forced conversions of Muslims and Jews during the entire reconquista and after, while Christian principalities also ally with Muslim rulers to combat their Christian enemies and vice versa; Jews and Muslims leave Spain

1492 – Columbus reaches America

[edit] 16th Century

1517 -- Ottoman Sultan Selim I assumes the caliphate from the last surviving member of the Abbasid dynasty, Al-Mutawakkil III, upon the latter's death in Istanbul

1526 – Battle of Mohacs: Kingdom of Hungary finally collapses after over a century under Ottoman assault

1529 – First Siege of Vienna

1532 – Second attack on Vienna halted in western Hungary

1541 – Budapest conquered

1543 – Joint French-Ottoman naval assault on Nice

1547 – Peace treaty between Habsburg and Ottomans

1570 – Cyprus conquered

1571 – Battle of Lepanto: coalition of European navies defeats Ottoman navy

[edit] 17th Century

1618-1648 - Thirty-Years War devastates Germany

1648 – Crete conquered

1648-1669 – Siege of Candia: Ottoman forces besiege city of Candia (modern Heraklion) on Crete, held at the time by the Venetians, after the Knights of Malta had raided an Ottoman convoy from Alexandria to Istanbul and fled to the city

1683 – after many wars on land and sea, Ottomans make another move on Vienna, but are defeated; this date marks the turn in the war between the Europeans and Ottomans, leading to the reconquest of the Balkans and Greece all the way to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW I

1699 – Treaty of Karlowitz: Ottomans cede much of Balkans to the Habsburg Empire that slowly but steadily becomes the dominating power in south-eastern Europe

[edit] 18th Century

1710-1711 -- Russo-Turkish War begun at the instigation of Charles XII of Sweden who had been defeated by Russians in Great Northern War (1700-1721), Ottomans defeat Russia

1735-38 -- Russo-Turkish War over succession to the throne of Poland (with Austria supporting Russia, Sweden (and France) supporting Ottomans), Ottomans prevail

1768-1774 -- Russo-Turkish War (Russians supported by GB, Ottomans helped by Polish opposition group) results in Russian access to the Black Sea

1798-1801 – French army under Napoleon in Egypt

[edit] 19th Century

1806-1812 -- Russo-Turkish War brings further gains for Russians

1821-29 – Greek War of Independence

1845 -- Ottoman sultan Abdulmecid I sends 1,000 sterling (upon request of Queen Victoria, he lowered his support from the intended 10,000 sterling) and 3 tons of food to support starving Irish farmers

1853-1856 -- Crimean War (Russian Empire vs. France, United Kingdom, and Ottoman Empire)

1869 – Suez Canal finished

1877/78 -- Russo-Turkish War brings independence for Balkan nations from Turkish rule

1882 – British take control of Egypt which remains nominally under Ottoman rule

[edit] 20th Century

1914 – Ottoman Empire enters into WW I as an ally of the Central Powers Germany and Austria

1916 – Battle of Mecca: Arab insurgents beat the Ottoman army with the help of Britain (T. E. Lawrence)

1916 – Secret Sykes-Picot agreement for post-war partition of Ottoman Empire among British and French, with Russian assent: British to receive Jordan, central and southern Iraq, Kuwait; French to receive south-eastern Anatolia, Syria, Lebanon, and northern Iraq; Palestine was to be administered jointly – Russia to get Istanbul (Constantinople) and Armenian region of eastern Anatolia

1917 – Russian Revolution topples the czar

1917 – Baghdad and Jerusalem are conquered by the British armies

1918 – Ottoman army defeated by the British (with help from Arab forces) at the Battle of Megiddo; Armistice of Mudros; Istanbul occupied by the allies

1920 – Treaty of Sevres: peace treaty between Ottoman Empire and its WWI enemies

1922 – Ottoman sultanate abolished by Turkish parliament

1922 – Greek forces occupy Izmir (Smyrna) and western Anatolia

1923 – Treaty of Lausanne: supersedes Treaty of Sevres and establishes Turkey in its current borders

1924 – Caliphate abolished by Turkish parliament