Anybody got a link to the great turningpoint battles against the Muslims

[Thorgal]

Another turning point not involving "christian heros" most people would not think about was the Abassid rebelion against the Umayya Caliphate in Damascus. It managed to the creation in 1750 of an independent muslim kingdom in Spain by the last surviving Umayya heir: Abd al Raman I. This kingdom was opposed and at war with the new Abassid Caliphate of Baghdad, breaking totally the unity of the great muslim empire and even promoting unrest against the Abassid Caliphate in western north africa. Because this European christian kingdoms only had to struggle with muslim Spain in the west for the next centuries. So in this sense Al-Andalus worked as a barrier against the rest of the muslim-ruled world.

[Dr Strangelove]

Napoleon's "Battle of the Nile" could also be considered a turning point in the fortunes of Islamic civilization against the west. Outside of Cairo Napoleon's starving and sick army defeated a muslim force several times their size, demonstrating unequivocally the weakness of the Ottoman Empire. It triggered a reaction among conservatives within the empire. Some regions of the empire closed themselves to foreigners entirely, and some began to put severe pressure on non-muslims, even "the people of the book", to convert. After peace with France was established the sultan attempted to reform the army, but conservative forces rebelled, eliminated the units trained by the French and deposed the sultan. Not only did napoleon's humiliation of thye Mameluks expose Islamic civilization's weakness, but a cycle of reaction was established that continues today.

[Vince278]

With all of the Muslim griping about the Crusades and so on it is easy to forget what all they did to everything in reach since the 700's.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Vince278
With all of the Muslim griping about the Crusades and so on it is easy to forget what all they did to everything in reach since the 700's.

You mean like how Muslim scholars preserved intellectual heritage for Europeans to use?

[Vince278]

I often wondered what happened to end that "intellectual" period in their history.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by MrFun



You mean like how Muslim scholars preserved intellectual heritage for Europeans to use?

Most of the preservation was done by Christian clerics actually.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MrFun

You mean like how Muslim scholars preserved intellectual heritage for Europeans to use?

You mean the knownledge which the Greeks invented and continued to retain through the entire period and which existed the whole time in Christian monistaries in the west? It was just that a few scholars first heard of it from the muslims and then publisized it thus muslims got credit for doing something which they never really did.

[Vince278]

The Chinese were ahead of the Muslims in many areas. Astronomy, for one.

[Alexander's Horse]

Re: Re: Anybody got a link to the great turningpoint battles against the Muslims

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


France, actually. The battle of Tours against Charles Martel, king of the Franks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

Yes, we decided that one was the best

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Vince278
I often wondered what happened to end that "intellectual" period in their history.

Well, the European and Mongol invasions in the high middle ages certainly helped.

[Vince278]

They should have been able to recover as the Europeans did.

[Dr Strangelove]

Didn't the Venetians carry back to Italy a lot of stuff from their sacking of Constantinople? Amazing how the muslims managed to preserve the intellectual heritage of the Eastern Roman Empire centuries before they finally finished it off. It's also apparent that the muslims found most of this knowledge in libraries that mysteriously managed to survive for centuries in pagan and Christian hands. For instance, the knowledge of linear equations which we now call Algebra actually came from books written by Greek mathematicians and preserved in Egypt, then loaned out to scholars in Persia. I'll bet there's a hefty fine for those overdue books.

[Seeker]

OK guys this was actually something I studies a lot about....

1. The 'Dark Ages' were not really so dark, in some areas breaks in records, learning, etc are less than 100 years...it's just that the focus shifted to the church.

2. In England, many Saxon kingdoms in the Heptarchy were HARDLY uncivilized even in the early times...Saxon kings married into and sent scholars to Charlemagnes' court and letters exist where Charlemagne' negotiates as an EQUAL with some British High Kings.

3. The Irish....for the time when there was a 'break', the Irish preserved the chruch in Britain

4. The 'Dark Ages' were actually something of a renaissance for Russia.

The issue is of focus: The Dark Ages were a hyperreligious time when the church was, for most people, the be all and end all of everything. There was no more Academy in Athens, the universities were not yet established, and many people were seriously debating the existence of monsters, whether pagan gods were demons or not, etc.

[chequita guevara]

Tours was the only real turning point in Europe. That battle ended the Muslim conquest of Europe (despite Spanish claims of an earlier victory, had France been defeated, it's unlikely that Christian Spain would have remained).

The Ottoman advance was halted not by force of arms, but their campaigning methods. They campaigned for a season only, returning home in autumn. This meant that they could only conquer what they could reach from Constantinople in one season. Had his army wintered in Buda and then moved on Austria, history would be rather different. The Battle of Vienna 150 years later wasn't a turning point, as the Ottomans had failed to advance that direction for 150 years.

The real turning point for Europe didn't even occur in Europe. It was when the Saffavid cult defeated the Kara Koyunlu dynasty and established a militant Shi'ite theocracy in Azerbaijan and Iran. The conflict between Saffavid and Ottoman cut off the influx of Turkish settlers to Ottoman lands, meaning they could no longer colonize newly conquered areas.

It also defelected Ottoman attentions from Europe. With a hostile empire at it's back, it could never fully concentrate on Europe again, and Europe knew it. Europeans sent guns, cannon, and men to train the Saffavids with them very early on, to make them into a much more serious threat to the Ottomans.

[Dinner]

How was Mexico?