The individual Muslim conquests, together with their beginning and ending dates, are as follows: Muhammads campaigns Main article: Military career of Muhammad Byzantine–Arab Wars: 634–750 Main article: Byzantine–Arab Wars Further information: Khalid ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-As Wars were between the Byzantine Empire and at first the Rashidun and then the Umayyad caliphates and resulted in the conquest of the Syria region, Egypt, North Africa and Armenia (Byzantine Armenia and Sassanid Armenia). Under the Rashidun Main article: Rashidun conquests Conquests of Muhammad and the Rashidun • The conquest of Syria, 637 • The conquest of Armenia, 639 • The conquest of Egypt, 639 • The conquest of North Africa, 652 • The conquest of Cyprus, 654 Under the Umayyads • The conquest of North Africa, 665 • The first Arab siege of Constantinople, 674–678 • The second Arab siege of Constantinople, 717–718 • Conquest of Hispania, 711–718 • The conquest of Georgia, 736 Later conquests • The conquest of Crete, 820 • The conquest of southern Italy, 827 Frontier warfare continued in the form of cross border raids between the Umayyads and the Byzantine Isaurian dynasty allied with the Khazars across Asia Minor. Byzantine naval dominance and Greek fire resulted in a major victory at the Battle of Akroinon (739); one of a series of military failures of the Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik across the empire that checked the expansion of the Umayyads and hastened their fall. Conquest of Persia and Mesopotamia: 633–651 Main article: Muslim conquest of Persia Further information: Khalid ibn al-Walid and Sad ibn Abi Waqqas In the reign of Yazdgerd III, the last Sassanid ruler of the Persian Empire, an Arab Muslim army secured the conquest of Persia after their decisive defeats of the Sassanid army at the Battle of Walaja in 633 and Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in 636, but the final military victory didnt come until 642 when the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Nahāvand. These victories brought Persia (modern Iran), Assyria (Assuristan) and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and south east Anatolia under Arab Muslim rule. Then, in 651, Yazdgerd III was murdered at Merv, ending the dynasty. His son Peroz II escaped through the Pamir Mountains in what is now Tajikistan and arrived in Tang China. Conquest of Transoxiana: 662–751 Main articles: Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, Islamic conquest of Turkestan, Battle of the Defile and Battle of Talas Further information: History of Arabs in Afghanistan Following the First Fitna, the Umayyads resumed the push to capture Sassanid lands and began to move towards the conquest of lands east and north of the plateau towards Greater Khorasan and the Silk Road along Transoxiana. Following the collapse of the Sassanids, these regions had fallen under the sway of local Iranian and Turkic tribes as well as the Tang Dynasty. The conquest of Transoxiana (Ar. Ma wara al-nahr) was chiefly the work of Qutayba ibn Muslim, who between 705 and 715 expanded Muslim control over Sogdiana, Khwarezm and the Jaxartes valley up to Ferghana. Following Qutaybas death in 715, local revolts and the defeats at the hands of the Chinese-sponsored Turgesh (chiefly the Day of Thirst in 724 and the Battle of the Defile in 731) led to a gradual loss of the province: by 738, the Turgesh and their Sogdian allies were raiding Khurasan south of the Oxus. However, the murder of the Turgesh khagan, Su-lu, and the conciliatory policies of Nasr ibn Sayyar towards the native population opened the way for a swift, albeit not total, restoration of Muslim control over Transoxiana in 739–741. Muslim control over the region was consolidated with the defeat of the armies of Tang China in the Battle of Talas in 751. Conquest of Sindh: 664–712 Main article: Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent Further information: Muhammad bin Qasim During the period of early Rajput supremacy in North and North-West India(modern day Pakistan) (7th century), the first Muslim invasions were carried out simultaneously with the expansion towards Central Asia. In 664, forces led by Al Muhallab ibn Abi Suffrah began launching raids from Persia, striking Multan in the southern Punjab, in what is today Pakistan. In 711, an expedition led by Muhammad bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir at what is now Hyderabad in Sindh, and established the Umayyad domination in the area by 712. The west of Indian sub-continent was then divided into many states. Their relation between each other were very weak. Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf the ruler of Iraq knew this and waited for the best moment to strike. As Muslim Empire and Dahirs kingdom were contiguous to each other, frequent border clashes took place. As a result relation between the two got worse. The King of Ceylon, the present Sri Lanka sent many 8 ships full of gifts for the Calipf Al-Walid and the ruler of present Iraq, Hajjaj Bin Yosuf. But the pirates plundered the ships at the Debal of Sindh, which is now known as Karachi. Same Pirates were also involved in plundering the innocent merchants and cities near the coast. A woman was also victim of those Pirates acts. In response to the letter sent by her to Hajjaj Bin yousaf in early 711 AD, he demanded to take action against Pirates from Raja Dahir. But Raja Dahir denied to take responsibility for the crimes committed by the pirates. For all these reasons. Hajjaj Bin yousaf sent soldiers against Dahir. But first two expeditions failed. Then in 712 CE Hajjaj sent the third expedition. The commander-in-chief of this expedition was Muhammad bin Qasim Al-Thaqafi the nephew and son-in-law of Hajjaj. Qasim subdued the whole of what is modern Pakistan, from Karachi to Multan. After his recall, however, the region devolved into the semi-independent states of Mansura and Multan ruled by local Muslim converts. The Arabs were effectively driven out after the defeats inflicted on them by the Gurjara Pratiharas. The emir of Sindh paid tribute to the Rashtrakuta king of Southern India. Further Muslim conquests in India were halted after the defeat of Arabs in Battle of Rajasthan at the hands of Hindu kings. Conquest of Hispania (711–718) and Septimania (719–720) Main article: Umayyad conquest of Hispania Further information: Tariq ibn Ziyad The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania commenced when the Moors (Berbers, Arabs and north west Africans) invaded Visigothic Christian Iberia (modern Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Septimania) in the year 711 Under their Moorish leader, Tariq ibn Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar on April 30 and worked their way northward. Tariqs forces were joined the next year by those of his superior, Musa bin Nusair. During the eight-year campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Islamic rule—save for small areas in the northwest (Asturias, Cantabria) and largely Basque regions in the western Pyrenees. This territory, under the Arab name Al-Andalus, became first an Emirate and then an independent Umayyad Caliphate, the Caliphate of Córdoba, after the overthrowing of the dynasty in Damascus by the Abbasids. When the Caliphate dissolved in 1031 due to the effects of the Fitna of al-Ándalus, the territory split into small Taifas, and gradually the Christian kingdoms started the Reconquest up to 1492, when Granada, the last kingdom of Al-Andalus fell under the Catholic Monarchs. Attempts to Conquer the Caucasus: 711–750 Main article: Arab–Khazar Wars After the conquest of Armenia, Muslim armies began to raid into the Caucasus, where they were confronted by the Khazars. Initial Muslim raids in the 640s and early 650s ended with the defeat of an Arab force led by Abd ar-Rahman ibn Rabiah outside the Khazar town of Balanjar. Hostilities broke out again in the 710s, with raids back and forth across the Caucasus but few decisive battles. The Khazars, led by a prince named Barjik, invaded northwestern Iran and defeated the Umayyad forces at Ardabil in 730, killing the Arab governor al-Jarrah al-Hakami and briefly occupying the town.The Arabs eventually drove them back into the Caucasus, killing Barjik. Arab armies led first by the Arab prince Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik and then by Marwan ibn Muhammad (later Caliph Marwan II) poured across the Caucasus and eventually (in 737) defeated a Khazar army led by Hazer Tarkhan, briefly occupying Atil itself. The difficult terrain and hostile population made a permanent occupation impossible; the Arab armies withdrew and Khazar independence was re-asserted. The frontier between the two groups eventually became static around Derbent ; although the Khazars would continue to raid Muslim territory, there were no more major battles. End of the Umayyad conquests: 718–750 Further information: Islamic invasion of Gaul The success of the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire in dispelling the second Umayyad siege of Constantinople halted further conquests of Asia Minor in 718. In 716 Khan Tervel signed an important agreement with Byzantium. During the siege of Constantinople in 717–718 he sent 50,000 troops to help the besieged city. In the decisive battle the Bulgarians massacred around 30,000 Arabs and Khan Tervel was called The saviour of Europe by his contemporaries. After their success in overrunning the Iberian peninsula, the Umayyads had moved northeast over the Pyrenees where they were defeated in 721 at the Battle of Toulouse and then at the Battle of Covadonga. A second invasion was stopped by the Frankish Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732 and then at the Battle of the River Berre checking the Umayyad expansion at Narbonne. The Türgesh Kaganate, a Turkic dynasty of the 700s, saw significant initial success fighting against the Umayyads. In 717, the Kara Turgesh elected Suluk as their Khaghan. The new ruler moved his capital to Balasagun in the Chuy valley, receiving the homage of several chieftains formerly bond to the service of Bilge Khaghan of the Türküt. Suluk acted as a bulwark against further Umayyad encroachment from the south: the Arabs had indeed become a major player in recent times, despite the fact that Islam had yet to make many converts in central Asia. Suluks aim was to reconquer all of Transoxiana from the Arab invaders - his series of conquests was paralleled to the west by the activity of the Khazar empire. In 721 Turgesh forces, led by Kül Chor, defated the Caliphal army commanded by Said ibn Abdul-Aziz near Samarkand. Saids successor, Al-Kharashi, massacred Turks and Sogdian refugees in Khujand, causing an influx of refugees towards the Turgesh. In 724 Caliph Hisham sent a new governor to Khorasan, Muslim ibn Said, with orders to crush the Turks once and for all. Confronted by Suluk on the way, however, Muslim reached Samarkand with only a handful of survivors, and the Turgesh were enabled to raid freely. A string of subsequent appointees of Hisham were soundly defeated by Suluk, who in 728 even managed to take Bukhara and later on destroyed a large part of the Caliphates army in Khurasan, discrediting Umayyad rule and maybe putting the foundations for the Abbasid revolution. The Turgesh state was at its apex of glory, controlling Sogdiana, the Ferghana Valley. It was only in 732, that two powerful Arab expeditions to Samarkand managed, if with embarrassing losses, to reestablish Caliphal authority in the area; Suluk renounced his ambitions over Samarkand and abandoned Bukhara, withdrawing north. In 734 an early Abbasid follower, al-Harith ibn Surayj, rose in revolt against Umayyad rule and took Balkh and Marv before defecting to the Turgesh three years later, defeated. In 738 Suluk, along with his allies Ibn Surayj, Ghurak (a Sogdian leader) and men from Usrushana, Tashkent and Khuttal to launch a final offensive. He entered Jowzjan but was defeated by the Umayyad governor Asad at the Battle of San or Kharistan. In 738, the Umayyad armies were defeated by the Indian Hindu kings at the Battle of Rajasthan, checking the eastern expansion of the empire. In 740, the Berber Revolt weakened Umayyad ability to launch any further expeditions and, after the Abbasid overthrow in 756 at Cordoba, a separate Arab state was established on the Iberian peninsula, even as the Muhallabids were unable to keep Ifriqiya from political fragmentation. In the east, internal revolts and local dissent led to the downfall of the Umayyad dynasty. The Khariji and Zaidi revolts coupled with mawali dissatisfaction as second class citizens in respect to Arabs created the support base necessary for the Abbasid revolt in 748. The Abbasids were soon involved in numerous Shia revolts and the breakaway of Ifriqiya from the Caliphs authority completely in the case of the Idrisids and Rustamids and nominally under the Aghlabids, under whom Muslim rule was extended temporarily to Sicily and mainland Italy before being overrun by the competing Fatimids. The Abbasid caliph, even as he competed for authority with the Fatimid Caliph, also had to devolve greater power to the increasing power of regional rulers. This began the process of fragmentation that soon gave rise to numerous local ruling dynasties who would contend for territory with each other and eventually establish kingdoms and empires and push the boundaries of the Muslim world on their own authority, giving rise to Mamluk and Turkic dynasties such as the Seljuks, Khwarezmshahs and the Ayyubids who fought the crusades, as well as the Ghaznavids and Ghorids who conquered India. In Iberia, Charles Martels son, Pippin the Younger, retook Narbonne, and his grandson Charlemagne actually established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a permanent buffer zone against Muslims, with Frankish strongholds in Iberia (the Carolingian Empire Spanish Marches), which became the basis, along with the King of Asturias for the Reconquista, spanning 700 years which after the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba contested with both the successor taifas as well as the African-based Muslim empires, such as the Almoravids and Almohads, until all of the Muslims were expelled from the Iberian peninsula. Conquest of Nubia: 700–1606 After two attempts at military conquest of Nubia failed (see First Battle of Dongola), the Arab commander in Egypt concluded the first in a series of regularly renewed treaties known as AlBaqt (pactum) with the Nubians, this governed the relations between the two peoples for more than six hundred years. Thereafter Islam progressed peacefully in the area through intermarriages with Nubians and contact with Arab merchants and settlers. It should be noted that according to some Muslim sources the second invasion of Nubia by the Muslims was actually a victory which led to the AlBaqt treaty. In one Muslim source the leader of the second invasion, Abdullah ibn Sad ibn Abi Sarh, is actually called the conqueror of Nubia In 1171 CE the Nubians invaded Egypt, but were defeated by the Muslim Ayyubids. From 1172-1173 CE the Muslim Ayyubids fought and defeated another Nubian invasion force from Makuria which had penetrated Egypt. This time the Muslim Ayyubids not only repelled the invasion, but actually conquered some parts of northern Nubia in retaliation. In the late 13th century the Muslim Sultan of Egypt,Sultan Baybar, defeated and subjugated the kingdom of Nubia (Makuria). Sultan Baybar made the Kingdom of Nubia (Makuria) a vassal state of Egypt. Decades later In 1315 the Christian kingdom of Makuria was conquered by the Muslim Mamelukes, and a Muslim prince of Nubian royal blood was placed on the throne of Dongola as king. During the 15th century, the Funj, an indigenous people appeared in southern Nubia and established the Kingdom of Sinnar, also known as As-Saltana az-Zarqa (the Blue Sultanate). The kingdom officially converted to Islam in 1523 and by 1606 it had supplanted the old Christian Nubian kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) and controlled an area spreading over the northern and central regions of modern day Sudan thereby becoming the first Islamic Kingdom in Sudan. Their kingdom lasted until 1821. Incursions into southern Italy: 831–902 Main article: History of Islam in southern Italy The Aghlabids rulers of Ifriqiya under the Abbasids, using present-day Tunisia as their launching pad conquered Palermo in 831, Messina in 842, Enna in 859, Syracuse in 878, Catania in 900 and the final Byzantine stronghold, the fortress of Taormina, in 902 setting up emirates in Sicily. In 846 the Aghlabids sacked Rome. Berber and Tulunid rebellions quickly led to the rise of the Fatimids taking over Aghlabid territory . The Kalbid dynasty administered the Emirate of Sicily for the Fatimids by proxy from 948. By 1053 the dynasty died out in a dynastic struggle and interference from the Berber Zirids of Ifriqiya led to its breakdown into small fiefdoms which were captured by the Italo-Normans by 1091. Conquest of Anatolia: 1060–1360 Main article: Byzantine–Seljuk Wars The Abbasid period saw initial expansion and the capture of Crete (840). The Abbasids soon shifted their attention towards the east. During the later fragmentation of the Abbasid rule and the rise of their Shiite rivals the Fatimids and Buyids, a resurgent Byzantium recaptured Crete and Cilicia in 961, Cyprus in 965, and pushed into the Levant by 975. The Byzantines successfully contested with the Fatimids for influence in the region until the arrival of the Seljuq Turks who first allied with the Abbasids and then ruled as the de facto rulers. In 1068 Alp Arslan and allied Turkmen tribes recaptured many Abbasid lands and even invaded Byzantine regions, pushing further into eastern and central Anatolia after a major victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The disintegration of the Seljuk dynasty, the first unified Turkic dynasty, resulted in the rise of subsequent, smaller, rival Turkic kingdoms such as the Danishmends, the Sultanate of Rûm, and various Atabegs who contested the control of the region during the Crusades and incrementally expanded across Anatolia until the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Byzantine-Ottoman Wars: 1299–1453 Main article: Byzantine–Ottoman Wars Further conquests: 1200–1800 Mughal expansion rapidly gave Muslims control of India After the Mongol Empire destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate, rampaged through most of the Muslim world following the Battle of Baghdad (1258), they soon converted to Islam, beginning an era of Turkic and Mongol expansions of Muslim rule into Eastern Europe, Central Asia and India. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan.[11] Unlike his predecessors, Timur was also a devout Muslim (As he converted after the conquest of Damascus) and referred to himself as the Sword of Islam. His armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and multicultural. During his lifetime Timur would emerge as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the formidable Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Sultanate of Delhi; Timur had also decisively defeated the Knights Hospitaler at Smyrna and since then referred to himself as a Ghazi. By the end of his reign Timur had also gained complete suzerainty over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and even the Yuan Khanate. However, the remains of his massive empire would carve out three of the worlds most powerful empires to pick up the ruins. The Ottoman Empire would fill up the power to the West of his empire, gradually taking up most of the Near East. The Saffavids would occupy Persia and Central Asia, whilst a descendant of Tamerlane would invade Kabul and from here would carve out an empire stretching from the borders of Persia in the West to the Bay of Bengal in the East. This empire would be known later as the Mughal Empire.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 23:51:01 +0000
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