For over 1400 years Muslims have played a leading role in the history of the world. From Spain to China, Muslims have left a lasting impact on the development of different regions. This history has been lost, ignored, or just plain rewritten to ignore Muslims. For too long both Muslims and non-Muslims have been ignorant of this illustrious history.
In this thread, we will try to re-post interesting historical facts related to Muslims from https://www.facebook.com/LostIslamicHistory
You are also invited to participate with us. Please keep this thread for posting the facts and updates only. For discussions, please quote a post and create a new thread for it.
In the early 800s, a group of Muslim astronomers in Baghdad calculated that the earth's circumference is 40,253 km. Modern science has calculated it to be 40,068 km, just 200 km less.
The first navy in Islamic history was built during the caliphate of Uthman ibn 'Affan . Because the Arabs were desert people, the navy was mostly built by Christians in Egypt and Syria who were happier with fair Muslim rule compared to the oppressive Byzantine rule they were under before Islam.
Starting in the 800s, the Muslim world not only had independent pharmacies that produced and dispensed drugs, but it even had government officials whose job it was to check the effectiveness of drugs and punish people selling fake remedies.
During the 1500s, the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan built 477 buildings, including the landmark Suleymaniye and Selimiye Mosques in Istanbul and Edirne.
On this day (10 October 732), a Muslim army was defeated in Northern France at the Battle of Tours, halting Muslim expansion into Europe. Had they won, modern-day France, England, and Germany could have been part of the Muslim Empire. — in Tours, Centre, France.
Because all Muslims must do the Hajj in Makkah once in their lives, that city has always been a meeting point of all the world's scholars. Imam al-Bukhari especially benefited from his time in that city.
A page of the Quran written by a Muslim slave in America, Ayub bin Sulayman, in the 1700s. He was originally from Senegal but was captured and forced to work in Maryland. He eventually escaped slavery and went on to live in England.
This page shows the beginning of Surat al-Ma'idah.
The great 14th century historian Ibn Kathir began the section in "al-Bidaya wal-Nihaya" about the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 with this verse from Surat al-Ra'd:
"Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. And when Allah intends for a people ill, there is no repelling it. And there is not for them besides Him any patron."
Read more: The Mongol Invasion and the Destruction of Baghdad
One of the most destructive times of Islamic history was the Mongol invasion in the 1200s. Learn what caused a scar on Muslim lands that took centuries to heal.
In 947, the Muslim geographer al-Masudi drew a world map that included a continent labelled "the unknown land" across the ocean from Africa. That was over 500 years before Columbus.
Despite the political problems and wars going on during his lifetime in the 11th century, al-Biruni managed to become one of the greatest Muslim scientists of all time. Among his fields of study were geology, history, astronomy, mechanics, and linguistics.
"It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments."
Ibn Khaldun's political philosophy has been used by historians and politicians for centuries to explain the rise and fall of empires.
Read more: How To Make Money - Ibn Khaldun and Taxes
The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan famously stated in a piece in the New York Times in 1993, "May I offer you the advice of the 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who...
On this day (23 October 1086), the Murabitun movement, led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, defeated Alfonso VI of Castile, at the Battle of Sagrajas. The victory halted the Christian conquest of al-Andalus for generations.
The world's first reliable long-distance postal system was established by the Abbasids in the 9th century. Europe, Asia, and Africa were all linked by an advanced and secure mailing system.
In the 800s, a cultural revolution occurred in Western Europe. Deodorant, glass cups, fashionable clothing, and shampoo were all popularized by the arrival of a cultural icon in al-Andalus: Ziryab.
91 years ago today (1 November 1922), the last Ottoman sultan was forced to leave power. The office of the caliphate would be abolished two years later.
This picture was taken as Sultan Mehmed VI left the palace for the final time.
In 872, Ahmad ibn Tulun, the governor of Egypt, established a hospital in Cairo. It was the first hospital in history to have a special ward to treat mental illness.
The Ottoman Empire, in accordance with its own Shari'ah laws, allowed non-Muslims a form of autonomy according to their own religious traditions.
Such tolerance and acceptance of other religions was completely absent in the rest of Europe at the time, where wars dragged on for decades between Catholics and Protestants over the right to practice different forms of Christianity.
In the 10th century, the Spanish Muslim surgeon, al-Zahrawi was the first to use catgut for internal stitches, since it is the only substance capable of dissolving into the body. It is still used in surgery today.
A conversation that occurred in the 8th century between Imam Sufyan al-Thawri and the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur:
al-Thawri: Verily, I know of a man who is so important that if he becomes upright, the entire nation will become upright and good.
al-Mansur: Who is he?
al-Thawri: You.
Coffee was originally discovered by Ethiopian or Yemeni Muslims in the 1400s. The word "mocha" comes from a Yemeni city, "java" is an Indonesian island known for its coffee beans, and the word "coffee" itself is a corruption of the Arabic "qahwa".
Many of the Enlightenment ideas that helped spur the American Revolution were borrowed from Muslim philosophers and scholars hundreds of years earlier.
The Giralda in Seville, Spain. It was originally built by the Muwahhidun Empire in 1198 as a minaret for the Great Mosque of the city. It was converted to a church bell tower upon the conquest of the city by Christians in 1248. — at Giralda.
Muslim understanding of medicine and disease was hundreds of years ahead of Europe. In the 14th century, Ibn al-Khateeb, a 14th century Spanish Muslim historian and poet, wrote about the causes of the bubonic plague, stating:
"The existence of contagion is well established through experience, research, sense perception, autopsy, and authenticated information, and this material is the proof." — in Granada, Andalucia, Spain.
“O people! The responsibilities of the Caliphate have been thrust upon me without my desire or your consent. If you choose to select someone else as the Caliph, I will immediately step aside and will support your decision” - Caliph Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz (r. 717-720)
The law of cosines, which is used in trigonometry and generalized the Pythagorean theorem, was first discovered by the 15th century Muslim astronomer and mathematician, al-Kashi. In French it is still known as the Théorème d'Al-Kashi.
On this day (2 November 1917), the British promised the Zionist movement that they would support their plans to colonize Palestine by issuing the Balfour Declaration.
The first country in the world to recognize American independence from Britain was a Muslim one: Morocco. This fact doesn't go well with the Islam vs. America narrative that some people like to perpetuate.
The great hadith scholar of the 15th century, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, was married to another hadith scholar, Anas Khatun. She was known for her popular public lectures on hadith, that were attended by hundreds of men and women.
"Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us [the Americans], he would find a pulpit at his service." - Benjamin Franklin one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, in his autobiography.
The oldest mosque in the Philipines, the Sheik Karim al-Makdum Mosque in Tawi-Tawi. It was established in 1380 by an Arab trader from Yemen. Although it has been rebuilt, four original wood pillars from the 14th century are still present.
"For whoever embarks on the study of history, they will end up in a beneficial imitation of the mindset of previous peoples in the subjects of religion and worldly matters." - Ibn Khaldun
Throughout world history, no other movement has grown as fast as Islam did in its first 100 years. What was special about Islam and the conditions it was born into that allowed it to grow so rapidly?
As Islam spread throughout the Indian Ocean from Africa to the Malay Archipelago, it connected people of various cultures and languages. Thus, trade became easier and China, Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, and Europe were all connected by Muslim merchants.
A scan of a 16th century Quran written in Spain. The verses are written in Arabic and the translation is written between the lines in Aljamiado.
Aljamiado was a writing style where Moriscos (Muslims in hiding) would write Romance languages (like Spanish, Portugese, or Mozarabic) using Arabic letters.
People who claim that the Hadith literature cannot be verified as authentic have never studied Imam al-Bukhari's remarkably stringent criteria for Hadith.
Al-Badiya Mosque in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. It was built in the 1400s and is the oldest mosque in the UAE. — in Al Badiyah, Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.
If you were a Muslim living in Spain in the 1500s, you had to practice your religion in secret, since Islam was officially illegal. In an effort to weed out secret Muslims, the Spanish monarchs forced suspected Muslims to keep their doors open on Fridays, and invite "Old Christians" to their weddings to ensure that there were no Islamic practices going on.
Allama Muhammad Iqbal at the Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain in 1933. He was given special permission to pray in it, almost 700 years after it was converted into a church.
"He [Umar] has given them an assurance of safety for themselves for their property, their churches, their crosses, the sick and healthy of the city and for all the rituals which belong to their religion. Their churches will not be inhabited by Muslims and will not be destroyed."
In 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, launching Islam into Eastern Europe, while still preserving the religious rights of Christians.
In 1492, the Spanish conquered Granada, the last outpost of Islam in Western Europe, and subsequently forced all Muslims in Spain to convert, leave, or die.
In 622, Banu Khazraj welcomed Prophet Muhammad (S) to Yathrib after he was exiled from Makkah.
In the 1200s, descendants of Banu Khazraj, the Nasrids, welcomed the followers of Prophet Muhammad (S) to Granada after they were exiled from the rest of Spain by the Reconquista.
Ottoman sultans were known for having nicknames based on their characteristics. Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) was nicknamed "Veli", Turkish for "the Saint" because he was known to prefer the company of scholars and religious people over government officials.
In 755, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur sent some Muslim soldiers to help the Chinese emperor. That began a centuries-long tradition of Chinese Muslims working at the highest levels of the military. Some of the greatest Chinese generals were Muslims, like:
Zheng He (15th century explorer)
Bai Chongxi (Chinese minister of war in the 1940s)
Ma Zhanshan (a leader of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese in WWII)
"Let no man lose is faith, for Allah created us out even less, and we are His. Let us hope for his divine mercy, which is even greater than all things put together. He will grant us the restoring of the throne of Islam, to the benefit of the Muslims of this peninsula. So let us not cease to call on Him, for He has promised to us more than He has yet given, might and powerful as He is."
- The conclusion to a tafsir of the Quran, written by a Muslim living in hiding in Spain in the 1500s, when Islam was outlawed.
During the Portuguese conquest of the Melaka Sultanate in the 1500s, people who studied Muslim Malay martial arts (known as Silat) were hunted down by the colonialists and had to flee into rural areas. Even today the best Silat masters come from rural areas.
The Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul was built in 1557 and had an air-filtration system that cleaned the air of soot from candles, which was then used to make ink for calligraphy pens.
In 1861, the European powers drew arbitrary borders and declared a new nation known as "Lebanon" in the Middle East in order to weaken the Ottoman Empire.
In 1511, the Portuguese conquered the city of Malacca. The city's government buildings and mosques were destroyed in order to build the a Portuguese fortress.
In the mid-1200s, Ibn al-Nafis discovered that blood from the heart is pumped into the lungs, back to the heart, and then out to the rest of the body. His works were lost for centuries, and only rediscovered in 1924.
Even over 1,000 years after the conquest of the Middle East and North Africa by Muslims, sizable Christian populations remain due to the Muslim policy of not forcing people to convert.
The interior of Masjid Omar Kampong Melaka, Singapore's oldest mosque. Originally built in 1820, and rebuilt most recently in the 1980s. — at Masjid Omar Kampung Melaka.
The mihrab of the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul. Built in 1463 by Mehmed II after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. It was rebuilt after being destroyed in an earthquake in 1771. — at Fatih Camii.
In 1454, a Jewish rabbi living in the Ottoman Empire sent a letter to Jews throughout Europe encouraging them to immigrate to Ottoman lands, where they could enjoy freedom of religion. He said that “here every man dwells at peace under his own vine and fig tree.”
"If we object to natural science, then clothing, food, and shelter could not be talked about."
- Hu Songshan, a Chinese Muslim scholar, making an argument for the inclusion of science as part of Islamic school curriculums in China.
Ottoman sultans would sign their names on official documents with elaborate and beautiful signatures, known as Tughras, that were very difficult to forge.
Some of those minaret designs are really interesting - do minarets follow any set of criteria? Like churches are basically laid out in a cross design, are there any "rules" to building minarets?
Some of those minaret designs are really interesting - do minarets follow any set of criteria? Like churches are basically laid out in a cross design, are there any "rules" to building minarets?
There's no set of criteria such as height or number of minarets. But there is "style" such as Ottoman style, Mediteranian, South Asia, Malay, etc.
Contrary to popular belief, Aurangzeb was not a bigoted temple destroyer. In fact, he allowed more temples to be built in some parts of India than any other Mughal ruler.
When the Ottoman Empire attempted to reform in the 1800s along European lines, French educational advisors persuaded Ottoman educators to prize science and math over liberal arts. The result was that the most intelligent students were encouraged to pursue the sciences. Medicine and engineering began to be seen as the most important and valuable jobs.
This system lives on today in the Arab world, where only students who score the highest in their Tawjihi or Baccalaureate exams in secondary school are given the opportunity to pursue careers in medicine and engineering. The students who score the lowest are allowed to study education, religion, and literature.
The minbar of the Great Mosque of Kairouan is an excellent example of the interconnectedness of the Muslim world.
It was built in the 800s from teak wood from India and Java (modern-day Indonesia) which was then carved in Iraq by expert artists before being shipped to North Africa, where it still resides today.
During the 1500s, coffee houses in Istanbul attracted writers, poets, scholars, and government workers. They were thus known as "mekteb-i irfan" meaning "schools of knowledge".
As the Ottoman Empire declined in the 1600s and 1700s, Western Europe began to grow and become more powerful. This led to a distrust among many in the Muslim world for anything that came from the West, including beneficial scientific knowledge. The result of this was that the Ottomans fell even further behind the West intellectually as they refused to innovate and progress.
"The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us [the British, is here entirely harmless...I am patriot enough to take the pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England."
-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1717, in a letter introducing England to the Muslim invention of vaccination, which was common in the Ottoman Empire when she visited it.
Some modern-day scientists, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, make the claim that Imam al-Ghazali was against all forms of science and caused the Muslim world to turn away from scientific inquiry.
This is far from the truth, as Ghazali himself upheld the importance of science along with traditional Islamic scholarship.
The Spanish called Muslims in Spain "Moors", so when they sailed around the world and conquered the Philippines in the 1500s, they called the Muslims there Moors as well.
Since then, the Moro Muslims of the Philippines have struggled for 500 years to re-establish Islamic rule in the southern part of the country, known as Bangsamoro.
Records exist of Muslims from Spain and West Africa crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the 900s and 1300s. Hundreds of years before Columbus did it in 1492.
The Ottoman Empire's main law code was the Shari'ah, and in accordance with Islamic law, at no time in the empire’s history were non-Muslims forced to abide by any Muslim laws.
In the 1600s, Mughal emperor Aurangzeb brought together hundreds of scholars to compile a work of Hanafi law known as the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. The compilation served as a code of law for the empire and is still an important resource for Hanafi fiqh today.
When Salah al-Din conquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders, he allowed the citizens of the city to leave unharmed if they paid a small ransom. For those who could not afford it, he paid from his own wealth for their freedom.
In the late 1000s, the Muslim world was a political mess. In Syria and Iraq, cities acted as independent dynasties always at war with each other while a rival Shi'a empire, the Fatimids, ruled in Egypt. The result of all this was that Crusaders from Europe were able to quickly and easily conquer Jerusalem in 1099.
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. Because the Arabs were desert people, the navy was mostly built by Christians in Egypt and Syria who were happier with fair Muslim rule compared to the oppressive Byzantine rule they were under before Islam.
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