The Destruction of Timbaktu Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD The ransom received by Ahmed al Mansur al Sa’adi from the Portuguese at the Battle of al Qasr al Kabir (1578) provided him only temporary financial relief. The traditional sources of income for the emir, namely trade and agriculture, were increasingly out of his reach. In the north, the Mediterranean trade was...

The Fatimid conquest of Egypt (969) was a defining moment in Islamic history. It destroyed any semblance of central authority in the Muslim world, provoked the reaction of the Turks as defenders of orthodox (Sunni) Islam, impelled the Omayyads in Spain to declare their own Caliphate, launched the powerful Murabitun revolution in western Africa, denied the Muslims their last chance to conquer...

The fall of Jerusalem was the price paid by the Muslims for the continued civil wars brought on by competing Sunni and Shi’a visions of Islamic history. The Crusades, declared in 996, were an intercontinental invasion across a front line extending more than 3,000 miles from Spain to Palestine. At the time, the house of Islam was divided into three households. The Turks championed the...

The word “Crusades” immediately conjures up among Muslims visions of Jerusalem and Salahuddin. While Jerusalem was indeed the focus of the First Crusade, a broader view of this civilizational confrontation between medieval Christianity and Islam must include the events in Spain and North Africa. While the Muslims did hold their own in West Asia and recovered Jerusalem, Medieval...