Medieval Islamic History
(second page; click here for the first page)
By 800 AD, however, under the rule of the Abbasid caliphs, the Islamic Empire had already begun to break down into many smaller kingdoms or caliphates (KAL--if-fates). The main part of it was ruled from Baghdad in modern Iraq. In the 900's control of Baghdad was taken over by the newly arrived Turks or Seljuks, and the Fatimid dynasty took over Egypt and Israel and Syria. In the east, the Ghaznavids took over Afghanistan and then northern India about 1000 AD.
In 1096 AD, Europeans called Crusaders invaded and conquered a good deal of Israel and Lebanon from the Fatimids. But by 1200 most of the conquered land had been reclaimed by the Mamluks and the Ayyubids (under Saladin). At the same time, the Almohads had succeeded in forming an empire out of North Africa and Spain.
But during the 1200's, the Almohad empire began to break apart. In northern Spain, the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal beat the Almohads in 1212, and had conquered most of Spain by 1248. In North Africa, the Almohad empire split into three smaller kingdoms: the Hafsids in the east, the al-Wadids in the center, and the Marinids in the west. In 1260, the Mongols invaded West Asia, and conquered the eastern part of the Islamic Empire, as well as northern India and Afghanistan.
During the 1300's and 1400's, the armies of Aragon and Castile gradually forced the Arabs out of Spain (they called this the Reconquista), finishing up in 1492 AD. By 1453 AD the Ottomans (successors to the Seljuks) had begun to establish the Ottoman Empire by conquering Constantinople (modern Istanbul). In 1517, the Ottomans conquered Syria and Egypt, and by 1639 AD they had taken Iraq. The Ottoman Empire lasted until the end of World War I in 1918 AD, and takes us out of the period covered on this site.
Main Islam page
Life of Mohammed
Umayyads
Abbasids
Fatimids
Mamluks
Seljuks
Ottomans
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