Welcome to Al-Islam.org. We invite you to begin a journey of clicks to explore this site thoroughly. We hope this journey is a source of education and enlightenment.
The rise of Islam was fundamental to Genoa's own rise. Muslims served as victims of Genoese piracy and eventually as customers of its trade. The Crusades helped to make Genoa as the city sharpened its own piety and identity in centuries of religious warfare against the Muslims. Islam also provides the Mediterranean scope of Genoese history.
The word 'Assassin' was brought back from Syria by the Crusaders, and in time acquired the meaning of murderer. Originally it was applied to the members of a Muslim religious sect - a branch of the Ismailis, and the followers of a leader known as the Old Man of the Mountain. Their beliefs and their methods made them a by-word for both fanaticism and terrorism in Syria and Persia in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the subject of a luxuriant growth of myth and legend. In this book, Bernard Lewis begins by tracing the development of these legends in medieval and modern Europe and the gradual percolation of accurate knowledge concerning the Ismailis. He then examines the origins and activities of the sect, on the basis of contemporary Persian and Arabic sources, and against the background of Middle Eastern and Islamic history. In a final chapter he discusses some of the political, social and economic implications of the Ismailis, and examines the significance of the Assassins in the history of revolutionary and terrorist movements.
A noble mission to free the holy land, or a gigantic expedition of plunder and murder? Some 900 years ago, 10,000 Christians answered the pope's call and set off for Jerusalem. We discuss the crusade that transformed relations with the Islamic world forever
t was at a speech made outside Clermont Ferrand that Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to claim the holy city of Jerusalem for Christianity, and wrest it from Islamic control. This was the start of a movement that continued, some historians argue, for over 500 years.
The leader of the West talks about a crusade to the Middle East. George Bush recently used the word in relation to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It's traditional context goes back to the Middle Ages when Western Europe's Christian powers attempted to re-capture Jerusalem from the new Islamic regional Power.
What are the parallels between these two attempts to lead crusades (and maintain coalitions) into the Middle East?
Bringing life to Muslim Heritage
Discover 1000 years of missing history and explore the fascinating Muslim contribution to present day Science, Technology, Arts and Civilisation.
Caliph, Caliphs, Muslim Early History Chart
General Information
Muhammad (623-632)
Abu Bakr (632-634) father-in-law (Arabic, khalifah, [successor]), khalifat Rasul Allah, [successor to the Messenger of God]), 1st Caliph
Umar I (634-644) amir-al-mum-inin (Arabic, [commander of the believers], 2nd Caliph
Uthman ibn Affan (644-656) Muhammad's son-in-law, 3rd Caliph
Ali Ben Abu Talib (656-661) a cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, 4th Caliph