Middle Ages
Battle of Yarmouk (636): Arab Victory over Byzantine Syria
Decisive Arab Muslim victory; the Byzantine Empire lost Syria and Palestine to the Rashidun caliphate.
Region
Middle East
Middle Ages
Battle of Nahavand (642): The Last Stand of Sasanian Persia
Decisive Arab Muslim victory; organised Sasanian military resistance collapsed and the Iranian plateau lay open to conquest.
Middle Ages
Uthmanic Codex: How the Quran Was Compiled as a Single Text
A standard written text of the Quran was distributed to the main centres of the caliphate and other versions were suppressed.
Middle Ages
Battle of the Masts (655): First Great Arab Naval Victory
Decisive Arab naval victory; Byzantine dominance of the eastern Mediterranean was broken, though the Arabs did not immediately exploit it.
Middle Ages
First Fitna (656-661): Civil War After Uthman's Murder
Ali was assassinated in 661, his son Hasan abdicated and Mu'awiya founded the Umayyad caliphate; the conflict created lasting divisions within Islam.
Middle Ages
Umayyad Caliphate (661-750): The Empire Ruled from Damascus
The dynasty built the largest empire of its time and established Arabic and Islam across it, but was overthrown by the Abbasid Revolution in 750.
Middle Ages
Battle of Karbala (680): The Death of Husayn ibn Ali
Husayn and most of his male companions were killed; his death became the central event of Shia remembrance, commemorated every year at Ashura.
Middle Ages
Dome of the Rock (691): Abd al-Malik's Shrine in Jerusalem
The Umayyads created the oldest surviving major monument of Islam, a domed shrine over the sacred rock that remains a symbol of Jerusalem.
Middle Ages
Umayyad Mosque of Damascus (705-715): al-Walid's Great Mosque
The Umayyads replaced the Church of St John with a monumental congregational mosque that became a model for mosque architecture across the Islamic world.
Middle Ages
Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258): The Golden Age of Baghdad
The Abbasids ruled the central Islamic world from Baghdad, presided over a flowering of science and culture, and lost real power long before the Mongols ended the caliphate in Baghdad in 1258.
Middle Ages
Founding of Baghdad (762): al-Mansur's Round City on the Tigris
A new, purpose-built capital gave the Abbasid caliphate a secure seat of power and grew into one of the largest cities in the medieval world.
Middle Ages
Nestorian Stele (781): Early Christianity in Tang China
The stele preserved the main record of Christianity in Tang China and, after its rediscovery in the 1620s, became famous worldwide.