Massacre of Muslims at the hands of European Barbarians

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On August 14,1415 AD, Henry the Navigator of Portugal, taking advantage of the weakening of Muslim rule in Spain and northwest Africa, launched an attack on the Maranid Dynasty of Morocco and occupied the port city of Ceuta in the battle of the same name. He slaughtered Muslim defenders in what is known as “baptism of bloodâ€‌.
On August 15,927 AD, Muslims from North Africa after bringing the whole island of Sicily under Islamic rule, take brief control of the city of Taranto in Apulia, southern Italy, before evacuating it. In the preceding century also, the Muslims, after taking control of Sicily, had established a foothold in southern Italy, founding the emirate of Bari, which fell over a half-a-century earlier in 871 to the savage onslaught of the Christian forces of Holy Roman Emperor Louis II, who massacred Muslims, burned libraries, and turned mosques into churches.
On August 15, 982 AD, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II was decisively defeated by the Muslim forces of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite caliphate of Egypt and North Africa at the Battle of Capo Colonna, in Calabria, southern Italy. The Fatemids, who after taking control of Sicily in the 960s had advanced into southern Italy, came into conflict with the Germans under Otto, who was advancing from the north with the intention of seizing Apulia and Calabria from the Byzantines. He was met by the forces of the Sicilian Emir, Abu'l-Qassem, to whom the Greek Christians had appealed for aid against the Roman Catholics. After initial success, Otto's army was bogged down in a pitched battle south of Crotone at Cape Colonna, and although Emir Abu'l-Qassem was martyred, the Muslim troops did not flee the battlefield. They regrouped and managed to surround Otto's soldiers, killing many of them and inflicting a severe defeat upon the Holy Roman Emperor. The defeat changed the political makeup of southern Italy, where the Muslims retained their presence, while the Greek Orthodox forces joined with the Muslims to regain possession of Apulia from the Roman Catholics. The Muslim presence in southern Italy lasted for over three centuries till 1300 AD, when due to loss of political power they were expelled, and the remaining were forcibly converted to Christianity with mosques turned into churches.
On August 20,1191 AD, during the Crusader Wars launched by European powers on Palestine, King Richard I of England, wrongly called the â€کlion-hearted’, cowardly slaughtered in sadistic manner around 3,000 enchained Muslim men, women, and children, in full view of the army of Salah od-Din Ayyoubi. This dastardly event, known in history as the "Massacre at Ayyadieh", took place at the fall of Acre to the Crusaders and is the strongest proof of Richard being a bloodthirsty terrorist, and not the courteous and chivalrous warrior-king depicted in the highly biased works of later English writers. The enraged Muslim army tried to attack in a bid to prevent the cold-blooded massacre, but because of its small numbers was repulsed by the Christians.
On August 20, 1131 AD, Baldwin II the self-styled 3rd king of the illegal Latin kingdom of Jerusalem died after a rule of 13 years during which he was constantly involved in wars and killings of Muslims. Earlier as Count of the occupied Syrian-Mesopotamian city of Edessa (currently in southeastern Turkey), he was captured in the Battle of Harran by the Seljuq Turks and was not released until four years later 1108. The Latin kingdom set up by the Crusaders from Europe collapsed in 1187 after 88 years of illegal existence in Palestine, as a result of an attack by a united Muslim army of Kurds, Turks, Arabs and Iranians, while the Egyptian navy effectively blocked the Mediterranean Sea to prevent any aid from Europe.
On August 25, 1095 AD, the first batch of European invaders landed in Syria to start the brutal Crusader wars against Muslims. They occupied Antioch – which is currently in south-western Turkey as a result of the handover by the French occupiers in 1937 despite the Syrian people's protests. Using Antioch as a base, they took advantage of the disunity and weakness of Muslim rulers, to advance towards Tripoli in what is now Lebanon. It seems that neither the Seljuq Sunni Turks who were dominant in Syria, nor the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite dynasty of Egypt-North Africa that controlled Bayt al-Moqaddas, were able to properly assess the intricate plots of the crusaders. They dismissed them as ragtag Byzantine mercenaries. This underestimation of the evil plots of the enemy, coupled with the lethargy of Muslim rulers, enabled the European invaders to attack and occupy the coastal belt of Syria, before advancing upon the Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas, which fell in 1099 AD, and where Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, as well as Arab Christians were massacred. Some 70,000 men, women and children made up of Arabs, Turks, and Iranians, were slaughtered by the Crusaders. After 88 years of occupation, Bayt al-Moqaddas was liberated in 1188 by the Kurdish ruler, Salah od-Din Ayyoubi who led an army of Kurds, Turks, Arabs and Iranians to end the illegal existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders were finally expelled from Palestine by 1270 AD.
On August 26, 1071 AD, the crucial Battle of Manzikert took place in Asia Minor in which the Seljuq Turks led by Sultan Alp Arsalan decisively defeated the Byzantine Army at Manzikert (modern Malazgirt in Turkey), and captured Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. The battle practically wrecked Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and led to the gradual Turkification of Anatolia, with the Seljuqs gaining an area of 78,000 square km in the next decade, which facilitated the mass movement of Turkic Muslims into central Anatolia.
Alp Arslan, whose capital was Isfahan, had initially sought a peace treaty with the Byzantines, for he regarded the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite Caliphate of Egypt as his main enemy for control of Syria. A peace treaty was signed in 1069 and renewed in February 1071, to enable the Seljuqs to attack the Fatemid controlled city of Aleppo, but Emperor Romanus tried to distract the Sultan long enough for leading a large army into Armenia.
Alp Arsalan quickly realized the plot of the Christians and met and defeated them at Manzikert. When the captured Emperor Romanos IV was conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan, the Sultan forced him to kiss the ground, and asked him what would he have done if he was captured, to which he got the reply that he would have been killed or exhibited in the streets of Constantinople.
Alp Arslan said: "My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free." Romanos remained a captive of the Sultan for a week, during which he was allowed to eat at his table whilst conditions were worked out for his release; including 10 million gold pieces as ransom for release, which the Sultan reduced to 1.5 million gold pieces as an initial payment followed by an annual sum of 360,000 gold pieces. Alp Arsalan before returning to Isfahan gave Romanos presents and an escort of two emirs and one hundred Mamluks on his route to Constantinople.
On August 28,1521 AD, the Ottoman Turks captured Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, during the reign of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The earlier attempt to take Belgrade by the Ottomans in 1456 under Mohammad al-Fateh had proved inconclusive.
On August 28,1542 AD, during the 19-year long Turkish-Portuguese War that lasted from 1538-to-1557, the Ottomans emerged victorious in the Battle of Wofla. The Portuguese were scattered, and their leader Christovão da Gama was captured and later executed.
On August 29, 1526 AD, the Ottoman Turks led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Hungary in the Battle of Mohacs, in which Louis II, the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia, lost his life. The Muslim victory led to the partition of Hungary for several centuries between the Ottoman Empire, and the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria. Only in the 20th century would Hungary regain its political independence.
On 22nd of the Islamic month of Shawwal in 1330 AH, the Ottomans withdrew from Libya in conformity with the Treaty of Ouchy after losing the war with the invading Italian forces.