The Hafsid Dynasty minted gold coins like this one The Hafsids replace the Almohads In the early 1200s AD, the Almohad empire fell apart into Marinid, Christian, and Hafsid kingdoms. The middle of North Africa [...]
Ghaznavids: A minaret in Ghazni (Afghanistan), from about 1000 AD Abbasid soldiers Beginning in the 850s AD, the Abbasid caliphs of the Islamic Empire were looking for soldiers they would be able to trust, who [...]
Fatimids built Bab Zuweila (Cairo, 1092 AD) Overthrowing the Abbasids in Egypt In 908 AD, a new family rose up in Egypt. They took control of Egypt from the Abbasids. This family [...]
Ibex hunt from Yemen, in early Arabia - 0-300 AD The first people there People probably first arrived in the Arabian peninsula about 60,000 BC,, crossing over the Sinai from Egypt or going all around [...]
Saladin Saladin started the Ayyubids When the First Crusade defeated the Fatimid Caliphs and captured Jerusalem in 1099 AD, people were very upset. People in Egypt and Syria gradually decided that the Fatimids were too weak to [...]
Rabat gate, Morocco, about 1200 AD Who were the Almohads? During the 1100s AD, while the Ayyubids were taking over Egypt, the Almohad dynasty managed to conquer and rule the rest of North Africa (modern [...]
Minaret at Samarra, 847 AD The first Abbasid caliphs In 750 AD, the Abbasid caliphs murdered all of the surviving Umayyad men but one. Who were the Umayyads? All our medieval Islam articles [...]
Islamic government: The Umayyad caliph Muawiyah Caliphs and viziers From the beginning, the Islamic Empire was a monarchy like the Roman Empire or the Sassanian Empire before it. One man ruled the Islamic Empire. [...]
Medieval Islamic games: Muslims playing chess in Spain Chess from India The big new game of the Islamic Empire was chess. The Arabs learned to play chess from the Sassanians when [...]
Orange tree: medieval Islamic food included new sweet oranges What did medieval people eat? Around the Mediterranean, people continued in the Islamic period to rely on the three main foods from [...]
