Some Important Historical Events

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On 23rd of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 421 AH, following the death of Mahmoud Ghaznavi, the Turkic Sultan who had created an extensive empire encompassing the eastern half of Iran, most of Central Asia, and the northwestern parts of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent; power dispute flared up among his twin sons, Mohammad and Mas’oud. Mohammad ascended the throne as per the will of his father, but when he refused his brother’s request for three of the provinces Mas’oud had won by his sword, civil war erupted. Mas’oud seized power, blinded Mohammad and imprisoned him, but was unable to preserve the empire following a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Dandanaqan by the Seljuq Turks who seized Central Asia and Iran. His last act was to collect treasures from all his forts in the hope of assembling an army to rule from India but his own forces plundered the wealth, forcing him to proclaim his blind brother as king again. The position of the two brothers was now reversed after ten years; Mohammad from a prison was elevated to the throne and Mas’oud from a throne was consigned to a dungeon where he was assassinated.
On February 16, 1249 AD, Christian priest, Andrew of Longjumeau, was dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to Karakorum, Mongolia, to meet with the Khaqan of the Mongol Empire, Guyuk Khan, to discuss an alliance with the Buddhists for attacking the Muslim world from the east and the west. Earlier, Andrew had carried letters from Pope Innocent IV to the Mongol Emperor, for the same purpose, but both his missions ended in failure. This is proof of the deep animosity of European rulers towards Islam and Muslims.
On February 16, 1279 AD, King Afonso III of Portugal, who was a bitter enemy of Portuguese Muslims and occupied the principality of al-Gharb (Algarve), died at the age of 69. He has earned lasting notoriety by ending over five centuries of flourishing Islamic rule in the southern and western parts of the Iberian Peninsula in what is now called Portugal, where the Christians followed a policy of expansionism and occupation.
On 6th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Saani in 541 AH, Imad od-Din Zangi, the Atabeg of Mosul, Aleppo, Hama and Edessa and founder of the Turkic Zangid dynasty that ruled parts of Syria, was killed by his European slave, Yarankesh, shortly after repulsing a joint Byzantine-Crusdaer army. His father, Aq Sunqur al-Hajeb, was governor of Aleppo under Malik Shah I, the Isfahan-based Seljuq sultan of Iran- Iraq-Syria-Anatolia. Imam Zangi distinguished himself in military exploits against the Crusader invaders from Europe, and defeated King Fulk of the usurper Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Bayt al-Moqaddas). The Zangid dynasty ended with the rise of the Kurdish adventurer, Salaheddin Ayyoubi of Mosul.
On 13th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 736 AH, the last Ilkhanid king of Iran, Iraq, Iraq and parts of Central Asia, Abu Sa’eed Bahador Khan, son of Oljeitu, died without an heir, and with him the dynasty founded by Hulagu Khan disintegrated. Although he patronized poets and religious scholars, he was a weak administrator, who during his 19-year rule committed many excesses, even executing able ministers, such as Rashid od-Din Fazlollah, the author of the famous history, “Jame’ at-Tawarikhâ€‌.
On 14th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 688 AH, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Mansour Qalawoon liberated Tripoli in northern Lebanon from the Crusader occupiers of Egypt. His victory led to the gradual liberation of Syria and Palestine from the European usurpers.
On 16th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 655 AH, Shajarat ad-Durr, the widow of the Ayyubid ruler, Sultan as-Saleh, died in Egypt. She played a crucial role after the death of her husband in repelling the Seventh Crusade launched against Egypt by Europeans. She was Turkic slave origin, and her becoming Sultana or Queen, marks the end of the rule of the Kurdish Ayyubid Dynasty over Egypt and the start of the era of the Mamluks that lasted for two-and-a-half centuries.
On 18th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 498 AH, Abu'l-Muzaffar Rukn ud-Dn Barkyaruq, the Seljuq sultan of Iran-Iraq-Anatolia and parts of Syria, died in Boroujerd, southwestern Iran. He was a son of Malik Shah I and participated in the succession wars against his three brothers, Mahmud I, Ahmad Sanjar, and Mohammad I. He ascended to the throne young, and his detractors thought him too inexperienced and accused him of being a drunkard. He waged war to regain control of the core Seljuqid lands that included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Central Asia and parts of Afghanistan. His rule coincided with the Crusader European invasion of Palestine. It is said his body was brought to Isfahan, the Seljuqid capital for burial. However, a tomb exists in his name 5 km from Boroujerd, called Zawwarian.
On 19th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 991 AH, the Safavid dynasty of Iran suffered a setback with the loss of a key battle in the Caucasus against the Ottoman Turks at Mashalat Lir for control of Sherwan, which is presently in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Iranians later liberated these lands.
On March 13, 1591 AD, Moroccan forces of the Sa’di Dynasty led by their general of Spanish origin, Judar Pasha, won Battle of Tondibi in Mali against the numerically superior forces of the Songhai Empire. In the subsequent battles the Moroccans conquered almost all major cities including Timbuktu. Founded in southern Morocco in 1509, the Sa’di Dynasty, which claimed descent from Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) through his daughter and son-in-law – Hazrat Fatema Zahra and Imam Ali (peace upon them) – controlled all of Morocco by 1554 until the collapse in 1659. The most famous sultan was Ahmad al-Mansur (1578–1603), builder of the famous al-Badi Palace in Marakesh. One of their most important achievements of the Sa’di Dynasty was the decisive defeat it inflicted on the Portuguese at the Battle of Qasr al-Kabir on 4 August 1578.
On March 24, 1401AD, the Turko-Mongol conqueror, Amir Timur sacked Damascus and massacred many of its inhabitants. Earlier Timur had subdued Iraq, Iran and the northern subcontinent. The next year he decisively defeated and captured the Ottoman Sultan, Bayazid. Timur was noted for his cruelty and his making of minarets with the severed heads of his victims. His empire stretched from Delhi in India in the east to Syria in the west, and to Moscow in the north. His capital was Samarqand, which is in the modern day republic of Uzbekistan.
On March 26, 1212 AD, Sancho I, the second king of Portugal or the breakaway northwestern strip of Islamic Spain, died. He was the son of Afonso I, who had rebelled against over five-and-a-half centuries of Muslim rule to seize the emirates of Lisbon and Badajoz. Sancho was nicknamed "the Populator" for seizing the territories of Spanish Muslims, carrying out ethnic cleansing, and resettling them with Christians from France and other parts of Europe. During the later years of his reign he lost territory to the al-Muwahhid Muslim dynasty.
On April 2, 1918 AD, over 12,000 Azeri Muslims were massacred in Baku in four days of indiscriminate slaughter, beginning from March 30, by allied armed groups of Armenians and Russian Bolsheviks, following a failed bid to reassert independence in the aftermath of the communist seizure of power in Moscow in October 1917. Baku and what is now known today as the Republic of Azerbaijan, was, along with Armenia and the southern Caucasus, an integral part of Iran for over two millenniums, until occupied by the Russians in the 19th century.
On April 6, 1250 AD, the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt defeated the Seventh Crusade launched on Muslim lands by European powers, and captured King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fareskur. The Christian invaders suffered a resounding defeat as some thirty thousand French and other European soldiers fell on the battlefield while thousands of others were taken prisoners, along with King Louis IX who was captured in the nearby village of Moniat Abdullah (now Meniat an-Nasr), while trying to escape. He was chained and confined in the house of Ibrahim Ibn Loqman, under the care of the eunuch, Sobih, while the king's brothers, Charles d'Anjou and Alphonse de Poitiers, were made prisoners at the same time, and carried to the same house with other French nobles. A camp was set up outside the town to shelter the rest of the prisoners. Louis IX was ransomed for 400,000 dinars. After pledging not to return to Egypt, the French king surrendered Damietta and left with his brothers and 12,000 war prisoners whom the Egyptian Muslims agreed to release. The Battle became a source of inspiration for Muslim writers and poets. One poem ended with the following verses: "If they (the Franks) decide to return to take revenge or to commit a wicked deed, tell them: “The house of Ibn Loqman is intact, the chains still there as well as the eunuch Sobih".
On 7th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Akher in 690 AH, the 8th Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, al-Ashraf Khalil ibn al-Mansour Qalawoon, succeeded in expelling remnants of the European Crusader invaders from Palestine by ending their last stronghold in Akka – or Acre as it is also called – when the Christians broke the truce to indiscriminately slaughter Muslims.
On April 8, 1271 AD, the 4th Turkic Mamluk Sultan (slave-king) of Egypt and Syria, Rukn od-Din Baybars al-Banduqdari, conquered the impregnable fortress of Krak des Chevaliers by defeating the crusader occupiers and expelling them back to Europe. Known to the Muslims as “Hisn al-Akraad (Castle of the Kurds), it sits atop a 650-metre (2,130 ft) high hill east of Tartus, Syria, in the Homs region on the way to Tripoli in what is now Lebanon. The castle was made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2006. Baybars, earlier as a general, had taken part in the resounding defeat of the 7th crusade led by the French king, Louis IX, at the Battle of Fareskur in Egypt (1250) and the decisive Muslim victory over the Mongols at Ain Jalut in Palestine (1260).
On April 8, 1461 AD, Austrian mathematician and astronomer, Georg von Peurbach, died at the age of 37 in Vienna. He studied the Islamic scientist, Ibn Haytham’s book “On the Configuration of the Worldâ€‌, and replaced the Greek scientist Ptolemy's chords in the table of sines with the Islamic Arabic numerals that were introduced 250 years earlier in place of Roman numerals and which today are in use in the whole world (e.g. 1,2,3,4,5 etc.)
On 5th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Akher, in 1261 AH, French forces burned to death the Algerian Muslim tribe of Awlad Rabah along with their animals.