Category Archives: Muslim Empire (old series)

The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1492

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Ruth

Inquisitions were normally a program run by priests who answered to the local bishop, who answered to the Pope. They were the answer to a very active concern: what about false teachers who might lead the illiterate astray? Inquisitions had … Continue reading →

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Vlad the Impaler, or DRACULA: 1448-76

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Ruth

When the King of Hungary created the Order of the Dragon in 1408, one of the knights to receive this honor was the illegitimate son of the Voivode of Wallachia (modern Romania). When the legitimate son died, Sir Vlad of … Continue reading →

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Skanderbeg and Albania’s short time in the sun: 1443-68

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Ruth

The national hero of Albania has the improbable (to our eyes) name of Skanderbeg. He was born George Kastriotis to a family that owned/ruled somewhere between 3 and 20 villages with a castle (“Kastrioti” implies “owner of a kastro, Greek … Continue reading →

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The Topkapı Palace: Constantinople Rebuilt, 1459

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Ruth

Mehmet II wanted to be the legitimate Byzantine Emperor in addition to being its Turkish conqueror. Now they pulled out a long-ago event forgotten by the Greeks: that one renegade son of an Emperor had converted to Islam and married … Continue reading →

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The Fall of Constantinople, 1453

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Ruth

The last siege of Constantinople took 57 days. The old core city had been built at the point where the Bosphorus met the Mediterranean and some smaller rivers fed into it with a long inlet, shaping the city’s site into … Continue reading →

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Gunpowder and the Orban Bombard, 1452

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Ruth

During the 1440s, the Ottoman Sultans continued to push back their frontier in Europe. Murad II made his 12 year old son Mehmet king, but he had to be called back in 1444 to confront the Hungarian-Wallachian army at Varna … Continue reading →

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Bedreddin’s Unitarian Revolution, 1416

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Ruth

A threat to the young Ottoman state even more serious than Timur’s invasion came in the form of Bedreddin, a Turkish sheikh, judge, and mystic. It was important to the Ottomans to create a unified state by enforcing Sunni Islam … Continue reading →

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Samarkand and the Math Emperor, 1405

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Ruth

Timur’s grandson Mohammed, son of Shah Rukh, was a huge nerd. It’s hard to be born into a notorious warlord’s family when you really just want to sit up at night in an observatory measuring the stars, or calculate Pi … Continue reading →

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Bayezid v. Timur: Showdown at Ankara, 1402

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Ruth

Two empires were expanding during the late 1300s; inevitably, they collided. In 1400, Timur’s Turko-Mongolian army based in Samarkand invaded the region we know as Turkey, and we’re almost to the point where we can call it that, but not … Continue reading →

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The Crusade of Nicopolis (and a bit about Dracula), 1396

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Ruth

While Timur was taking over Central Asia and India, the Ottoman-ruled zone was also growing. In 1389, Sultan Murad died in the Battle of Kosovo, killed by Serbian knights, but his son Bayezid was on hand. Bayezid had his brother … Continue reading →

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