5000 Years of History. Wisdom. Heritage. Vision.
Important Events of the East in the Middle Ages 214 B. C. – A. D. 1071 214 B.C. The Ch’in emperors build the Great Wall of China. 206 B.C.-A.D. 220 Trade and the arts flourish in China under the Han dynasty, in the east. A.D. 220-589 China is torn by invasions and civil war in the period of the Six Dynasties 552 Buddhism is officially introduced into Japan and China. 571 The birth of Mohammed happened in the east. 604 Prince Shotoku gives Japan a constitution. 607 Shotoku sends missions to study Chinese culture. 618-907 The T’ang dynasty, one of the “golden ages” of China. 622 Mohammed and his followers are forced to flee from Mecca to Medina in the Hegira. 630 Mohammed’s followers capture Mecca. 632 Death of Mohammed. 642 With the defeat of the Persian Empire, the world of Islam extends from Africa to the Indus. 710-784 The Nara Period in Japan is marked by semi-Chinese culture. 711 Moslem Arabs and Berbers invade Spain and defeat the Goths. 712-756 Hsuan Tsung reigns over China; art, literature and philosophy flourish. 720 The Nihon Shoki, legends of the history of Japan, is written. 750 Rise of the Abbasid caliphs. 751 China loses Turkestan to the Arabs after the battle of Talas. 756 Rise of the Omayyad dynasty in Spain. 762 Al-Mansur founds a new capital for the caliphs at Baghdad. 778 Charlemagne and the Frankish army invade Spain but are defeated by the Moslems at Roncesvalles. 786-809 Harun al-Raschid encourages learning and makes war on the Byzantine Empire. 794 Kammu moves the Japanese capital to the new city of Heian, the present-day Kyoto. 813-833 Reign of al-Mamun, under whom Baghdad becomes a center of knowledge and the arts. 960-1279 Painting and printing flourish in China under the Sung dynasty. 1071 Alp Arslan defeats the Byzantine army and destroys the empire in Asia Minor. Important Events in the East in the Middle Ages, 1099 – 1644 1099 Crusaders invade Palestine and capture Jerusalem. 1185-1333 Japan becomes feudal during the Kamakura period, with effective rule by the warlords. 1187 Moslems led by Saladin recapture Jerusalem. 1189-1192 The “Crusade of Kings” reaches Palestine but fails to conquer Jerusalem. 1206 Temujin is proclaimed Genghis Khan and leads his armies to conquests in Asia and Eastern Europe; a Moslem is made Sultan of Delhi and begins to unite India. 1227 Death of Genghis Khan. 1258 Mongols under Hulagu capture Baghdad and execute the last of the Abbasid caliphs. 1260 Mamelukes under Baybars defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut, saving Egypt as a refuge of Moslem culture. 1267 Kublai Khan builds Peking. 1274 Kublai tries to invade Japan but is defeated. 1275 Marco Polo arrives in China. 1281 A second invasion of Japan is completely wiped out. 1294 Death of Kublai Khan. 1336-1573 Japan under the Ashikaga shoguns is torn by civil wars. 1368-1644 The Ming dynasty gives China three centuries of order. 1398 Timur captures and sacks Delhi, killing many thousands. 1421 Yung-lo moves the Chinese capital to Peking. 1453 Mohammed II and the Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire. 1498 Vasco da Gama reaches India. 1520-1566 Suleiman, greatest of the Ottoman rulers, expands the empire and organizes its legal system. 1526 Babur defeats the Delhi sultan at Panipat and founds the Mogul Empire. 1543 Portuguese traders and missionaries arrive in Japan. 1556 Akbar becomes Mogul emperor and consolidates India. 1557 Portuguese build a settlement at Macao on the coast of China. 1632 Shah Jahan begins construction of the Taj Mahal. 1641 European merchants are expelled from Japan. 1644 Beginning of the Manchu dynasty in China.
ARABIA, the big, boot-shaped peninsula off the northeast corner of Africa, is one of the hottest and driest regions on earth. It is also extremely rugged. Almost all of it is made up of mountains‚ deserts and immense plains of…
IN THE year 571, in Mecca, a boy was born in a humble household of the Quraysh. No one knows what name he was given. His father died before his birth and his mother when he was six. The orphan,…
Mohammed sometimes dictated his thoughts to his secretary, Zayd, but when he spoke in public no one wrote down what he said. Instead, his listeners learned his speeches by heart and mistakes crept in, as they usually do. Only a…
THE FIRST three caliphs — Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman — had all known — Mohammed well. In 656, Othman, an old man in his eighties, was stabbed to death by a band of rebels. They believed that the right…
UNDER THE Omayyads, who ruled from 661 to 750, Islam had grown into a mighty empire. Arabic had become its language, while the Arabs, in turn, had picked up useful skills from the peoples they had conquered. The state had…
IN 750, when the first Abbasid caliph ordered a wholesale massacre of the family that had ruled before him, hardly any of the Omayyads came out alive. One who did was a twenty-year-old youth named Abd-al-Rahman, a grandson of the…
THROUGHOUT THE eleventh century, the divided Arab Empire became weaker in all its parts. Meanwhile, the Christian lands to the north became stronger. Adventures from northern France snatched Sicily and Southern Italy from the Arabs. The pope called on the…
LIKE THEIR relatives the Mongols, the Turks began as wandering herdsmen in Central Asia. Their first contact with Islam was as victims rather than victors. When Arab armies overran the southern part of their homeland in the eighth century, many…
ACCORDING to their tradition, the Ottoman Turks once belonged to the same Central Asian tribe as the Seljuk Turks. Their ancestors came to Asia Minor with the Seljuks. In time, they began to challenge the authority of their fellow Turks.…