The Ottoman Turks

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On February 16, 1391 AD, John V Palaiologos, a Byzantine Emperor, died after a reign of 50 years, spending his last years as a vassal of the Ottoman Sultans, Murad I and Bayazid I, after an unsuccessful bid to make an alliance with Rome and the Catholic Church against the Muslims. He made a humiliating tour of several European lands, suffering detention in Venice and ridicule in other parts for resisting demands to give up the Greek Orthodox creed and accept the supremacy of Rome. In the end he realized that his survival and that of the Orthodox sect of Christianity lay in accepting the suzerainty of the Turks rather than acknowledge the schism of the Catholic sect.
On 7th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 1150 AH, the Ottoman army led by Hekimoghlu Ali Pasha, defeated the Holy Roman Empire near the Bosnian town of Banja Luka. This was a crushing blow by the Muslims of Europe to the ambitions of the Germans and the Austrians in the Balkans.
On March 2, 1525 AD, Budapest, the capital of Hungary was taken by the Ottoman Turkish army. The Turks had earlier defeated the Hungarian king in the Battle of Mohacs and in this manner the borders of Ottoman Empire reached the Austrian capital, Vienna. Till 1718, when Austria invaded and occupied the whole of Hungary, Budapest was a flourishing Muslim city with fine baths, libraries, madrasahs, mosques, bazaars and other public amenities. Most of the Hungarians had embraced the truth of Islam, but with the occupation by the Austrians, Budapest was destroyed, its people either driven or forced to become Christians, and its Islamic faأ§ade completely destroyed.
On March 15, 1486 AD, the Ottoman army was again defeated before Adana. Karagoz Mohammad fled the field, while the general Hersekzade Ahmed was taken captive, and Cilicia in what is now south-central Turkey returned to the control of the Turkic Mamluk Dynasty of Egypt-Syria. The series of internecine Muslim wars between the two major Turkic powers were the result of intrigue by the Pope and West European Christian states, following the end of the Byzantine Empire and fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, when it appeared that it was matter of time before Islam could spread all over Europe. It was unfortunate of the Ottomans to halt their drive into Europe and turn towards the east against fellow Muslims in Anatolia and Syria, at a time when the beleaguered Spanish Muslims of Granada were desperately calling for help from the Muslim World against and the Mamluks had prepared a large army in what is now Libya for stopping the Christian aggressors in the Iberian Peninsula. This same seditious policy of the Ottomans in Muslim lands was the cause of the Battle of Chaldiran against the Safavid Empire of Iran that allowed much-needed respite to Europe to reorganize militarily and culturally (Renaissance) for eventually pushing back the Ottomans and gradually ending their supremacy in the Muslim lands of southwest Europe that were forcibly Christianized after centuries of Islamic rule and culture.
On 4th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Awwal in 982 AH, The Ottoman Turks retook Tunis in North Africa from the Spanish occupiers following seizure of the heavily guarded fortress of Halq al-Wadi. In this battle, 5000 Spanish and Italian soldiers were killed and 3000 others were taken captives. The Ottomans also captured 225 canons.
On March 29, 1676 AD, the Ottoman Turks defeated Poland and gained control of parts of Ukraine. This battle started as of the year 1671 with the unrest of Poland’s Cossacks and the Ottoman Empire’s support for them.
On 17th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani in 1110 AH, the Ottoman Turkish fleet defeated the Venetian fleet in a sea battle in the Mediterranean, near Italy, thus establishing Muslim supremacy over the sea routes.
On April 6, 1453 AD the Ottoman Sultan Mohammad II began his siege of Constantinople, the capital of Byzantine or the Eastern Roman Empire which fell on May 29 to the Muslims and was consequently renamed Islambol. The city is known as Istanbul today and is Turkey's largest city.
On April 18, 1590 AD, Ahmed I, 14th Ottoman Sultan and the 6th self-styled caliph of the Turkish Dynasty, was born. During his 14-year rule (1603-17), the Ottomans lost the war with the Safavids, who were led by the energetic Shah Abbas the Great and his valiant general, Allahverdi Khan. As a result Georgia, Armenia and the occupied parts of Azerbaijan were returned to Iranian control in 1612.
On 4th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani, in 885 AH, Ottoman Sultan Mohammed al-Fateh, the conqueror of Constantinople which he named Islambol (today’s Istambul in Turkey), succeeded in taking the Italian town of Otranto, as a launching point for his goal of conquering Rome. But he died before that within a year on 4th Rabi al-Awwal 886 AH.
On April 15, 1489 AD, the Ottoman master architect, Me’mar Sinan, was born in Cyprus of Greek Christian parents. At the age of 22 he converted to Islam and joined the Sultan’s court in Istanbul, where he became the chief architect and civil engineer for Suleiman the Magnificent, Salim II, and Murad III. He was responsible for the construction of more than three hundred major structures, including mosques, bridges, caravanserais, etc, in Istanbul, Damascus, Aleppo and other cities. His masterpieces include, the beautiful Suleimaniyyah Mosque Complex in Istanbul. He is often compared to the Italian Sculptor, Michelangelo.
On 5th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Akher, in 986 AH, the Ottoman Turks seized from Safavid Iran, Tiflis or modern Tbilisi, which is the capital of the present day republic of Georgia in the Caucasus, following the death of the long peaceful reign of Shah Tahmasp I. Several years later, Iran under Shah Abbas the Great, succeeded in liberating most of Georgia by defeating the Ottomans.