ISLAMIC HISTORY AFTER THE MONGOL INVASION

The Mongols devastated the eastern lands of Islam and ruled from the Sinai

Desert to India for a century. But they soon converted to Islam and became

known as the II-Khanids. They were in turn succeeded by Timur and his

descendants who made Samarqand their capital and ruled from 1369 to

1500. The sudden rise of Timur delayed the formation and expansion of

the Ottoman empire but soon the Ottomans became the dominant power in

the Islamic world.

From humble origins the Turks rose to dominate over the whole of

Anatolia and even parts of Europe. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror

captured Constantiople and put an end to the Byzantine empire. The

Ottomans conquered much of eastern Europe and nearly the whole of the

Arab world, only Morocco and Mauritania in the West and Yemen,

Hadramaut and parts of the Arabian peninsula remaining beyond their

control. They reached their zenith of power with Suleyman the Magnificent

whose armies reached Hungary and Austria. From the 17th century onward

with the rise of Western European powers and later Russia, the power of

the Ottomans began to wane. But they nevertheless remained a force to be

reckoned with until the First World War when they were defeated by

Western nations. Soon thereafter Kamal Ataturk gained power in Turkey

and abolished the six centuries of rule of the Ottomans in 1924.

While the Ottomans were concerned mostly with the western front of their

empire, to the east in Persia a new dynasty called the Safavids came to

power in 1502. The Safavids established a powerful state of their own

which flourished for over two centuries and became known for the

flowering of the arts. Their capital Isfahan, became one of the most

beautiful cities with its blue tiled mosques and exquisite houses. The

Afghan invasion of 1736 put an end to Safavid rule and prepared the

independence of Afghanistan which occurred formally in the 19th century.

Persia itself fell into turmoil until Nader Shah, the last Oriental conqueror,

reunited the country and even conquered India. But the rule of the dynasty

established by him was short-lived. The Zand dynasty soon took over to be

overthrown by the Qajars in 1779 who made Tehran their capital and ruled

until 1921 when they were in turn replaced by the Pahlavis.

As for India, Islam entered into the land east of the Indus River peacefully.

Gradually Muslims gained political power beginning in the early 13th

century. But this period which marked the expansion of both Islam and

Islamic culture came to an end with the conquest of much of India in 1526

by Babur, one of the Timurid princes. He established the powerful Mogul

empire which produced such famous rulers as Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah

Jahan and which lasted, despite the gradual rise of British power in India,

until 1857 when it was officially abolished.

Farther east in the Malay world, Islam began to spread in the 12th century

in northern Sumatra and soon Muslim kingdoms were established in Java,

Sumatra and mainland Malaysia. Despite the colonization of the Malay

world, Islam spread in that area covering present day Indonesia. Malaysia,

the southern Philippines and southern Thailand, and is still continuing in

islands farther east.

As far as Africa is concerned, Islam entered into East Africa at the very

beginning of the Islamic period but remained confined to the coast for

some time, only the Sudan and Somaliland becoming gradually both

Arabized and Islamized. West Africa felt the presence of Islam through

North African traders who traveled with their camel caravans south of the

Sahara. By the 14th century there were already Muslim sultanates in such

areas as Mali, and Timbuctu in West Africa and Harar in East Africa had

become seats of Islamic learning.

Gradually Islam penetrated both inland and southward. There also

appeared major charismatic figures who inspired intense resistance against

European domination. The process of the Islamization of Africa did not

cease during the colonial period and continues even today with the result

that most Africans are now Muslims carrying on a tradition which has had

practically as long a history in certain areas of sub-Saharan Africa as Islam

itself.