632 AD : The Islamic prophet Mohammed dies in Medina, and Abu Bakr is selected af the First Khalifa, or Caliph (deputy). The desert Bedouin tribes and urban dwellers of Arabia come into conflict after the Prophet's death, and rival sects are founded. Abu Bakr dispatches his most fearsome commander Khalid (ibn al'Walid), known as the Blade of Allah, who summarily slaughters the infidels and heretics wherever he finds them, for as the Qu'ran reads, "...in the shade of scimitars is Paradise prefigured."

633 AD : Al-Muthanna (ibn Haritha), chief of the Banishaiban clan, steals into Persian Mesopotamia and begins siege of Hira (which he takes on camelback) and then drives his army west to Damascus. 700,000 Christian troops are dispatched from Constantinople by Emperor Heraclius in response; most of them are slaughtered in the desert outside the city. "Infidels they came, infidels they departed."

635 AD : Damascus falls after Khalid and his army arrives. He then leads his troops into Jordan and defeats the Byzantine army massed against him at Battle of Yarmuk.

638 AD : The Islamic armies swarm Jerusalem after a 600 day siege of the city and soon control most of the Holy Land.

640 AD : Arabian troops cross into Egypt, and by September control Alexandria. Amr (ibn Al'as), the general now in command, writes back to the Caliph in Mecca, "We entered the city, every man having to veil their eyes from the sunlight glaring off the marble and gold."

649 AD : Arabs take Cyprus and begin a naval war with the Byzantine Empire.

653 AD : The lessons of the Prophet are for the first time officially compiled into the Koran (Qu'ran) while all other unauthorized literature is immediately suppressed. The First Jihad erupts.

656 AD : The Third Caliph Uthman (ibn Affan) is assassinated in Medina by religious sectarians, and two opposed armies of the faithful mass at Siffin, in Syria, copies of the Qu'ran spiked to the tips of their lances.  The Syrian side carries the day as Islam schisms effectively into the Sunni (who believe the Caliph line to be legitimate) and the Shi'a (who believe Ali ibn Abu Talib, Mohammed's cousin, to be the true spiritual successor. This schism, however, and Talib, have nothing to do with Taliban (ta-fathah), which is Arabic for "student", as most of them are graduates from various orthodox Islamic institutions). Syrians were Sunnis, the Persians Shi'a. (The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s was fought along exactly the same religious grounds, with Iraq as Sunnis, Iran as Shi'as). Many thanks, yaqub0r, for the etymology.

661-667 AD : Islamic armies besiege Constantinople for the first time. The city becomes a battleground between Islam and Christendom for the next 900 years.

670 AD : Under Caliph Mu'awiya, the Moslem armies march 10,000 cavalry across Egypt, through Libya and into Tunisia.

685 AD : Civil war erupts in Persia, with two opposed Caliphates, one in Damascus, the other in Medina.

711 AD : The Arab general Tarik moves his troops into the Gothic kingdom of 'occupied' Spain, completely surprising the northern Goths at Guadalete, who retreat into Gaul (France).*

714 AD : Seville and Medina surrender to another Arab general, Musa.

722 AD : Tarik, under the order of Emir Yazid, brings his forces across the Pyrnees mountains, marching on Toulouse, which manages to barely hold its territory with the help of the Duke of Aquitaine.

733 AD : Arab armies now reach as far as Poitiers, in Gaul, where a loose confederacy of troops are brought together by the Franks, Belgians and Germans.

762 AD : The re-construction of Baghdad, the Alexandria of Arabia, as scholars flock there from around the known world seeking access to the amassed literature there. The Caliph al-Ma'mun (scholar, astronomer, theologian) establishes the library/translation center/school. the Bait al-Hikmah ('House of Wisdom'), where all the Greek, Roman and Alexandrian classics of poetry, science and philosophy are transcribed and preserved through the Middle Ages. It also is the beginning of The Arabian contribution to Cryptology.

778 AD : Charlemange crosses into Spain, 'liberating' Saragossa and Barcelona.

788 AD : Jihad is declared against the Frankish Charlemange.

844 AD : Viking ships begin attacking the Moslems in Seville, Moorish armies retreat to the stronghold city of Cordoba, where they remain until their expulsion by the Portugeuse in 1492.


Notes:

Ironically, the only other instance of such cultural foresight in the history of the world is taking place at the same time, on remote wind torn islands of the coast of Northern Ireland, where bands of Celt hermits, recently converted to Christianity, are undertaking the translation of hundreds of Persian, Byzantine and Spanish texts, brought to them by religious refugees displaced by plagues and wars throughout the 7th and 8th centuries. The Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels are two examples of the literature produced by the meeting of Middle Eastern and Irish culture. For further reading, see Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization (NY: 1995), a knotted history of 'extreme' monasticism and the fragile transmission of ideas in a dark time (despite the book's clich?characterizations of the Irish as unchanging, nature-loving heathens and Cahill's neo-conservative social views).

* The temptation to make a Goth joke here (with Killing an Arab) at the Cure's expense, is almost overwhelming...

Years later, a young friar named Gerbert (who will become Pope Silvester II) visits the libraries of Cordoba when the city is ruled by Abd-Al Rahman. The Pope will remark these were some of the finest libraries the world had known, and to which Europe had little access. Not long after this statement, once Silvester' s successor is chosen, the Crusades begin, a concerted effort by European leaders, in particular the Church, to recover science and learning.
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