Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Islam-West Conflict: A Historical Study

The Islam-West Conflict: A Historical Study

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islam-west-statue-libertyThe current conflict between Islam and the West — from human rights issues in Muslim countries, to anti-Western violence by radical Muslims, to their campaigns against liberal lifestyle and ethos and for instituting Sharia law in Western countries — should be seen not as separate from the historical Islam-West conflicts. Theologically, Islam was born to create a global Islamic state governed by laws of the Quran and Sunnah, i.e. Sharia. But most Muslims understand that the age-old campaign for the imposition of Sharia law through violent means in the West is unrealistic under current circumstances. However, current demographic trends suggest that Muslims would become — resulting from high birthrates and their increasing influx from overpopulated Muslim countries amidst decline in the native population — the dominant religious group in many Western countries by the middle of this century.[64] The current ratio of Muslim to non-Muslim birthrate is 3:1 in Europe;[65] Muslims constitute only 10% of the population in France, but 30% of the youths under the age of 20 are Muslims.[66] Lewis predicted in 2004 that ‘Current trends show Europe will have a Moslem majority by the end of the 21st century at the latest… Europe will be part of the Arabic West, of the Maghreb.[67]

With the Muslim population growing in leaps and bounds, the campaign for instituting Sharia laws, and, therefore, Islamic governance in Western countries will, in all likelihood, intensify over the coming decades. Whether or not would this campaign succeed remains to be seen. If it does, Islam will overcome its long-standing hurdle to Islamize the globe resolutely held back by the West for so many centuries.

Introduction

With Marxist-Communist regimes’ collapse ending the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama argued in 1989 that liberal democracy may signal the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form of governance, which would eventually be adopted globally.[1] Fukuyama’s thesis had two seminal assumptions:

(a) Triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally

(b) Emergence of a nonconflictual world civilization

Samuel Huntington’s Civilizational Clash thesis, proposed in 1993, challenged both assumptions of Fukuyama. Regarding the triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally, Huntington emphasized that ‘Law and order’, ‘the first prerequisite of Civilization,’ were evaporating or under threat everywhere — China, Japan and the United States included. Globally, ‘Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism… a global Dark Age possibly descending on humanity,’ he wrote.[2] Opposed to Fukuyama’s proposed emergence of a nonconflictual world civilization, Huntington emphasized that conflicts in the world were not over. However, future conflicts would likely be fought along civilizational fault-lines over cultural or religious differences, not along national lines over ideological (political) or economic reasons. ‘The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future,’ he predicted.[3]

Identifying seven to eight major civilizations, namely Indian, Chinese, Asian, Islamic, Western etc., Huntington emphasized that, instead of converging towards universal liberalism globally, human consciousness within these civilizations is increasingly parochializing: people are becoming increasingly conscious of their cultural, religious or civilizational values. Huntington’s thesis gets a significant space for Islamic resurgence, simply because religious resurgence amongst Muslims in recent decades much outweighs the rejuvenation of civilizational consciousness amongst other peoples. Islam has Bloody Borders, Muslims are involved in majority of the world’s conflicts, says Huntington, which is rather evident. ‘The overwhelming majority of fault line conflicts, however, have taken place along the boundary lopping across Eurasia and Africa that separates Muslims from non-Muslims,’ he writes, adding, ‘wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors.[4]

Although Huntington analyzes how different civilizations would likely interplay in reshaping the world-order in the emerging era, his analysis regarding Islam has become a bone of contention. Critics have attacked his whole thesis as a forced construction of an inevitable Islam–West conflict, nonexistent in reality. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, argues Robinson, is based on ‘the old Western polemic against Islam, Western fears of Islam, and a strong dose of Orientalism’. Robinson emphasizes that ‘there is a long history of the Muslim and the Christian civilizations drawing on each other, and being enriched by each other, and this is a process which, whatever the rhetoric, still continues.[5] With Communism brought down, many critics have argued that the inherently hegemonic and militaristic West needed a new enemy: Huntington’s thesis was an effort to invent one. It set out ‘to identify “new sources” of international conflicts in the post-Cold War world.[6] Said mockingly called Huntington’s thesis The Clash of Ignorance, concluding: ‘‘The Clash of Civilizations’ thesis is a gimmick like ‘The War of the Worlds,’ better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.[7]

After the September 11 (2001) attacks in the U.S., the international media was abuzz with Huntington’s thesis: his supporters saw his prophesy being fulfilled, while his opponents intensified their attacks on him for deliberately creating a paradigm that may fuel a fateful conflict between Islam and the West. His more avowed conspiratorial critics suggested that, prompted by Huntington’s thesis, the U.S. administration itself committed the 9/11 attacks for advancing its hegemonic interests: the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. On Huntington’s dilemma, Ayaan Hirsi Ali concludes: ‘Foretelling the future can be fun for astrologists, prophets and crystal-ball gazers. For academics, it is not. If you get it right, you will be damned like Samuel Huntington. If you get it wrong, you will be called a certified idiot.[8]

To former U.S. President Clinton’s assertion that the West has no problems with Islam, Huntington retorted:

The relations between Islam and Christianity, both orthodox and Western, have often have been stormy. Each has been the other’s Other. The twentieth century conflict between Liberal Democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relations between Islam and Christianity.[9]

A historical investigation, however, proves Huntington right. Islam, just two decades after its birth, came in conflict with the Christian West, and it has remained so except for rare brief respites. Who can deny the existence of the Crusades or the European colonial occupation of Islamic countries? Still, numerous scholars and critics have trashed the idea of Civilization Clash, especially one between Islam and the West. Christian Europe, not Islam, they argue, has been historically intolerant to non-Christians: Jews in Europe and Muslims in Spain. On the contrary, Christians, Jews and even Heathens found tolerance, peace and prosperity in the Muslim land. It is the Christian West that captured much of the Muslim and non-Muslim lands in the abhorrent colonial era. Islam could, therefore, pose no threat to the West.

In this study, the historical conflict between Islam and the West will be investigated aiming to understand what factors fueled it, and how its legacy affects the present Islam-West relations.

Islamic doctrine and the birth of Islam-West conflict

Islam was founded by the Prophet Muhammad in the Arabian Peninsula during the last 23 years of his life (610–632 CE). While founding Islam, he had directed 70–100 raids and wars. These wars were inspired, even directed, by verses of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, which Muslims believe, contains God’s words in immutable forms for guiding humankind. Having captured the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad organized two campaigns against the Christians of Muta and Tabuk in Syria, a part of Byzantium—the world’s most powerful empire. The commands of Islamic God (Allah) contained in Quranic verses are binding on Muslims for all time, whilst the Prophet Muhammad’s actions and deeds constitute ideal templates for them to do likewise. Therefore, after Muhammad’s death, his successors continued the tempo of his conquests. Within two decades, Muslims overran the world’s second-mightiest empire, Persia, and captured the prized territory from Byzantium. Islamic depredations of Western Europe began in 652, exactly two decades after Muhammad’s death when Muslims occupied Spain in 711, establishing Islamic rule lasting some 780 years. Europe sustained numerous Muslim attacks until the last decade of the seventeenth century.

In this context, it is critical to understand the Prophet Muhammad’s doctrine of war that had inspired and enabled Muslims to easily overrun often much stronger oppositions over great parts of the world, and enabled them to own half of the know world.

The Islamic doctrine of war: The Prophet Muhammad, born in Mecca in Arabia c. 570, grew up as an idol-worshipping Pagan like his compatriots. At the age of 25, after marrying a wealthy Christianity-influenced woman, Khadija, and associating with her devout Christian cousin, Muhammad stopped worshipping idols. He allegedly obtained prophethood from God for preaching Islam in 610. Allah, his God, was the same Christian or Jewish God, who had allegedly sent 124,000 prophets, Muhammad being the last. Islam, claims Allah, is His final perfected religion chosen as His favor to all humankind [Quran 5:3][10] and it must be proclaimed over all other creeds [Quran 48:28]. It was chosen as the sole religion—abrogating the rest—for all mankind.

The Prophet Muhammad tried to preach his religion persuasively in his hometown, Mecca, for 13 years with very little success. His messages were hostile and insulting to existing religion and customs: he called himself and his followers the righteous, and those, who ignored his messages, were wicked, liars, wrong-doers and inventors of falsehood; he consigned them to eternal hellfire [Quran 56:41–46, 17:20, 16:104–5]. The Meccans generally ignored his message; he never faced violence from them. Having failed in Mecca he relocated in 622 to Medina—about 250 miles North of Mecca—where his creed becoming popular. Medina was inhabited by two religious communities: Pagans and Jews, the latter wealthier and more influential.[11] The Pagans joined his creed in large numbers, while the Jews mostly rejected it. Allah revealed many verses exhorting the Jews (also Christians) to accept Muhammad’s new creed [Quran 2:30–38, 240–261], but failed to impress them.
Muhammad’s community now strengthened and secured, Allah changed his strategy for making Islam to prevail over all religions. He then revealed the doctrine of ‘Jihad’ or ‘holy war’ against non-Muslims, who reject his faith. ‘Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you’ [Quran 2:190]. Allah now commands Muslims: ‘…slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter[12] [Quran 2:191] and ‘…fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah’ [Quran 2:193]. Allah repeats: ‘…fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere…’ [Quran 8:39].

Muhammad’s followers were unwilling to engage in this God-sanctioned violence against otherwise innocent people to which Allah revealed another verse to make fighting binding on Muslims even if they disliked it [Quran 2:216]. Still some peace-loving converts had hesitated about fighting, fearing bloodbaths; Allah admonished them as diseased and faint-hearted [Quran 47:20].

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This way Allah gave Muslims the divine right to attack non-Muslims. He sanctioned: ‘…some ye slew and ye made captive some. And He [Allah] caused you to inherit their land and their houses and their wealth…’ [Quran 33:26–27]. In other words, Allah commands Muslims to kill some (normally the adults) and enslave the rest (the women and children) of non-Muslim communities, and makes their lands and properties divinely sanctioned booty for Muslims. Alternatively, Allah sanctioned the banishment of non-Muslims enabling Muslims to acquire their homes, properties and lands: ‘Allah had decreed banishment for them… because they resisted Allah and His Messenger…’ [Quran 59:3–4]. Allah sanctioned that Muslims can keep the women, captured in such holy wars, as sex-slaves (concubines): ‘O Prophet! Surely We [Allah] have made lawful to you your wives… [and] those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war’ [Quran 33:50].

The Islamic doctrine of global imperialism: Islam is a complete package of divine guidance for governing the spiritual, social and political aspects of human life and society. ‘[Islam] is an all-embracing system, a complete code of life, bearing on and including every phase of human activity and every aspect of human conduct.[13] Through violent holy wars, Allah wants to establish Islamic rule, governed by the Islamic holy laws (Sharia), over all peoples. Allah owns the heaven and earth [Quran 24:42, 34:1] and holds absolute authority over them [Quran 57:5, 67:1]. He would make Muslims the inheritors of the earth [Quran 6:165], and help them triumph over it [Quran 24:55]. In order to realize His dream, as Muslims wage holy war, Allah will assist them in the fighting—thereby, helping them capture the lands of non-Muslims bit by bit [Quran 21:44, 13:41].

In summary, Allah outlines in the Quran a blueprint for establishing a religio-political imperial state over the entire globe through Jihad. To inherit the earth, Allah commands, Muslims must kill the Polytheists wherever they are found, and enslave their women and children for converting to Islam, thereby capturing their lands for establishing Islamic rule [Quran 9:5]. For acquiring the lands controlled by monotheistic Jews and Christians, Muslims must fight them, Allah commands, until they feel subdued and subjugated to Muslim rule and pay special taxes [Quran 9:29]. Allah’s desired global triumph of Islam will, thus, be completed.

With these unrestrained Godly sanctions of aggressive violence for establishing a global Islamic state, the Prophet Muhammad started attacking and plundering the non-Muslim communities of Medina and Arabia. In 624, he attacked and exiled the Jewish tribe of Banu Qainuqa from Medina, taking possession of their homes, lands and properties.[14] Next year, the same fate was visited the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir.[15] Banu Quraiza, the last Jewish tribe of Medina, was attacked in 627. Their adult males—600 to 900 of them—were slaughtered, and their women and children were enslaved.[16] Medina, which had given Muhammad refuge a few years earlier, was thus denuded of non-Muslims.

Medina became the first seat of Muslim power. From here, the Islamic imperial state was to expand in all directions. Khaybar—a Jewish stronghold, some 115 kilometers North of Medina—was overrun in 629. Mecca, the heart of Islam and Muhammad’s birthplace, was overrun in 630. Muhammad’s biographies by pious Muslim historians list 70–100 raids and wars directed by him, personally commanding 27 of them. In his attacks, he exiled entire tribes or slaughtered the men, and enslaved the women and children—the enslaved generally had to embrace Islam. Muhammad brought entire Arabia under the feet of Islam during his nine-year campaign of conquests.

In 628, Muhammad, still quite weak militarily, dared sending emissaries to the world’s most powerful rulers—the King of Persia and Emperor Heraclius of Byzantium—demanding that they submit to Islam, and accept Muhammad as their master, or face consequences.[17] Those rulers—to their own peril—ignored his threatening letters as the exuberance of a madman. Prophet Muhammad himself dared leading a 30,000-strong army in October 630 to the Byzantine border in Syria, but returned without going on the offensive.[18] His successors carried forward his Jihad campaigns for realizing God’s dream of establishing a global Islamic kingdom. Within two decades, Muslims overran the mighty Persian Empire, and captured the Levant and Egypt—the crown territories of Byzantium. Central Asia was annexed within the seventh century; North Africa was conquered in 698; Northwest India in 712–15; Central and North India by the early thirteenth century; and South India in the late sixteenth century. Similar conquests were undertaken in other fronts. Islamic campaigns against Western Europe and the ensuing conflicts are discussed in following sections.

The clash between Islam and the West

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Conflicts in the Mediterranean Islands and Sicily (652–1091): Muslims brought Prophet Muhammad’s campaign of holy war to the far-off shores of Western Europe exactly two decades after his death. The Mediterranean island of Sicily suffered the first Jihad raid involving pillage and plunder in 652, which was repeated in 669, 703, 728, 729, 730, 731, 733, 734, 740 and 752. Muslims also attacked other Mediterranean islands — Sardinia, Ischia, Corsica and Lampedusa, then under the Byzantine control. They devastated Ischia and Lampedusa in 813, attacked Sardinia and Corsica in the same year and Crete in 824.

The early Muslim incursions (652–752) on Sicily failed to gain a foothold for Islam. The Islamic conquest of Sicily started in real earnest when an Aghlabid Muslim army from Tunis landed in Mazara del Vallo in 827. This started a long series of battles: Palermo fell in 831, Pantelleria in 835, and Messina in 843. Cefalù and Enna resisted Muslim assaults for many years before being overrun, and razed to the ground in 858 and 859, respectively. Syracuse succumbed to Muslim assaults in 878, and its whole population—including those taken refuge in churches—were massacred.[19] Catania fell in 900 and Taormina in 902. Sicily came under Muslim control completely in about 915. Palermo, renamed al-Madinah, became the new Islamic capital of the Emirate of Sicily, and Arabic replaced Greek as the national language. A Norman conquest of Muslim Sicily, started in 1061, led to eventual expulsion of Muslims in 1091.

Spain and France: In 711, Musa ibn Nusair, the Muslim governor of North Africa and his General, Tariq, crossed the Mediterranean Sea to attack Spain. The reigning Visigoth King Rodrigo was defeated followed by mass slaughter and enslavement, plunder and pillage; the churches and synagogues were destroyed, and often replaced by mosques. The whirlwind march of Muslim conquest moved northward: Toledo, Barcelona, and Girona were easily captured. By 716, most of Iberia, except a few northern tracts, was under the Muslim control.[20]

Meanwhile, Caliph al-Walid called Musa back to Damascus. He marched back in a Romanesque procession with the Caliph’s one-fifth share of the spoils: caravans of un-dreamt of wealth and slaves, including 30,000 virgins captured from the Visigothic families alone.[21]

The Muslim army crossed the mountainous borderline of the Pyrenees into the Frankish territory. The Visigothic Kingdom of Septimania [Languedoc] in Southern France quickly succumbed (720). Muslims marched on, and attacked Toulouse in 721, suffering severe reverses by an Aquitanian-Frank confederate force led by Duke Eudo of Aquitaine. An allegedly 375,000-strong Islamic army was thoroughly destroyed.[22] Although the figure is undoubtedly hyperbolic, it was, nonetheless, one of the worst military defeats in Muslim history.

The Muslim army, dedicated to holy wars in the cause of their God, could hardly be restrained. In 725, their raids reached Autun in the Frankish territory. A 60,000-strong Muslim army marched on penetrating deep into France, and defeated Duke Eudo at Aquitaine. Muslims sacked Aquitaine, and burned down Bordeaux. They defeated Duke Eudo again near Agen with Eudo fleeing northward. As they engaged in plundering, pillaging and burning the towns and churches, Charles Martel joined Eudo, and took up position between Poitiers and Tours. As the Frankish army stood immobile like a wall of ice, the Muslim army made repeated small-scale charges only to be beaten back every time. They tried all trickery to dislodge the Frankish line, which, despite suffering heavily, stood its ground for one whole autumn. Muslims launched the final charge on the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan (732 CE). In order to rally the sagging morale of his increasingly disheartened fighters, Muslim commander Abd al-Rahman, the governor of Al-Andalus [Iberia], led the charge himself, and perished, which led to retreat of Muslims overnight. Balat ech shuada — the road of the martyr of the faith — had ended on this front.

From Spain, Muslims continued, albeit unsuccessfully, their incursions on the French borders for another two centuries.[23] Had they succeeded in this battle, there was no one to stop them in Europe; Europe would be Islamic today.[24] Edward Gibbon remarked tellingly: ‘…perhaps the interpretation of the Quran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford and her pulpit might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.[25]
An indigenous Spanish revolt against Muslim occupiers, called Reconquista, began in 718 lasting nearly eight centuries, and the Muslim colonists were completely dislodged from power in 1492.
Southern Italy:[26] The Muslim warriors, checked at the border of France on the Iberian front, also made strenuous efforts to penetrate into Europe through the Mediterranean Italian Coast. The invaders devastated the coastal town of Centumcellae [Civitavecchia] in 813 and again in 829. Hereafter, Islamic incursions into mainland Italy came from Sicily, where Muslims had established a colony.[27] In 840, the Arabs made an incursion deep into Italy and devastated the monastery of Subiaco. In 840, they conquered the coastal towns off Benevento; Carolingian Emperor Ludovico II succeeded in ousting them in 871.

In 845, the Arabs penetrated deep inland capturing Capo Miseno (Naples) and Ponza near Rome, making it their base for attacking Rome. In 846, they ransacked Brindisi, and conquered Taranto near the Southwest tip of Italy; Byzantine Emperor Basil I succeeded in freeing Taranto in 880.

On 28 August 846, a Muslim fleet arrived at the mouth of river Tiber, and sailed to attack Rome. Meanwhile, a Muslim army from Civitavecchia and another from Portus and Ostia marched on-land to join the expedition. They failed to penetrate the enclosing walls around Rome, solidly defended by the Romans. The Arabs vandalized and plundered the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Saxons, Longobards, Frisians and Franks staunchly defended St. Peter, perishing to the last man. The invaders destroyed all the churches of the district of Suburb. Pope Leo IV, forced to flee Rome briefly, appealed for help from the neighboring kingdoms. Responding to his plea, Marquis Guy of Spoleto counterattacked and defeated the Arabs. While fleeing partly towards Civitavecchia and partly towards Fondi, the Arabs indulged in ruin and devastation of the country. At Gaeta, the Longobard army clashed with them again. Guy of Spoleto found himself in serious difficulties, but the Byzantine troops of Cesarius from Naples arrived in time to rescue him. This attack prompted the Pope to undertake the construction of the Civitas Leonina in 848 to protect the Vatican Hill.

In 848, Muslim invaders attacked and sacked Ancona on the western coast of Italy. The next year, a huge Muslim naval fleet set off to attack Rome, and met the Italian naval fleet at the mouth of river Tiber near Ostia. In the confrontation, the Arabs were routed.

In 856, the Arabs attacked and destroyed the Cathedral of Canosa in Puglia. They assaulted and occupied Ascoli in 861, slaughtered the children, and carried away the inhabitants as captives. In 872, they attacked and besieged Salerno for six months, before being freed by Emperor Ludovicus II.
In 876, they entered the Roman territory again, and attacked Latium and Umbria, slaughtering the inhabitants, enslaving them and sacking the villages, before marching towards Rome; they turned the Roman country into an unhealthy desert. Pope John VIII (872–882) defeated the Arabs at Circeo, and freed 600 enslaved Christians from 18 Muslim vessels. He attempted to expel the Arabs after the depredations, but with little help from European kings forthcoming, he failed and was forced to pay tribute. Muslims continued their devastation of Latium both on the coast and inland. Subiaco was destroyed for a second time.

Muslim invaders continued consolidating their conquest of the Roman country: they went on to capture Tivoli [Saracinesco], Sabina [Ciciliano], Narni, Nepi, Orte, Tiburtino countries, Sacco valley, Tuscia and Argentario Mountain. Their depredations continued through the 880s and 890s. By this time, Muslims had plans to establish an Emirate in Southern Italy. In 916, Marquis Adalbertus of Tusca, Marquis Albericus of Spoleto, Prince Landulf of Capua and Benevento, Prince Gaimar of Salerno, the dukes of Gaeta and Naples and Byzantine Emperor Constantine entered into an anti-Arab alliance, with Pope John X personally heading the land troops. The Arabs were totally defeated, and mainland Italy was freed from the invaders, although Sicily remained under the Muslim control until 1091. Later on, Muslims attacked Venice (Italy) in the 1420s, albeit from another front.

Ottoman attacks on Europe form the Byzantine front: At the time of Islam’s birth, Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire) had bridged tracts of Europe with West Asia and North Africa. Muslim invaders captured Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Cana, Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, Caesarea and Egypt from Byzantium quite early in bloody battles. They made naval attacks on Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, first in 674, then in 677–78 and 717–18, suffering severe reverses in each case.
In 838, Amorium (Anatolia) was captured and devastated, yielding so large a number of slaves that Caliph al-Mutasim sold them in batches of five or ten, while Sultan Alp Arslan devastated Armenia (also Georgia) in 1064: those not enslaved were slaughtered.[28] The biggest Muslim blow to Byzantium yet came in 1071 when Sultan Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine army at Manzikert (Armenia) bringing the Muslim army ominously close for a land-attack on Constantinople. By the mid-fourteenth century, the Byzantine Empire on the east was mostly captured except the tiny Bosporus or Istanbul Strait. This enabled the Ottoman army to cross over to Europe via Thrace, east of Constantinople, in the 1350s. In the 1360s, Islamic invaders seized Adrianople [now Edirne] and Philippopolis [Plovdiv]. Adrianople became a royal residence in 1366 to facilitate the Ottoman conquest of Europe.[29]

In the early 1370s, General Murad started making incursions deeper into Europe. Having himself become the Sultan in 1383, Murad intensified his campaigns, capturing the Bulgarian capital Sofia and the city of Niš in 1385. Although the Serbs inflicted a crushing defeat on the Ottomans in 1387 in the battle of Plocnik, they marched anew deep into Europe two years later (1389). They defeated a Serbian-Bulgarian coalition army at the battlefield of Kosovo Polje. Murad quickly advanced into Bulgaria, and captured the cities of Dráma, Kavála and Seres (Serrái), but the Sultan was killed by valiant Serb warrior, Miloš Obilic. Having lost the capital Kosovo, the Jerusalem of the Serbian Empire, the Balkan was lost to the Muslim invaders.

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