Shah Mosque, Ishfahan, Iran (1611-38) West Asia was divided into two big empires in the 1500s AD - the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire. Both the Ottomans and the Safavids followed Islam, but they followed two different kinds of [...]
Building at Gobekli Tepe (ca. 9000 BC) People have started a lot of different religions. Some of them are still practiced today; others are not. It is hard even to [...]
In the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed, and for some years afterwards, Islam was a united faith. But by the 650s AD, Islam split into two main sects. They fought bitterly with each other. These two [...]
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 [...]
Minaret at Samarra, 847 AD The Abbasids built Baghdad When the Abbasid dynasty moved the capital of the Islamic Empire to Baghdad from Damascus in 762 AD, of course they needed a lot of [...]
Genghis Khan Mongol and Turkic people take power By 1200 AD, the Mongol and Turkic people of Central Asia had pretty much finished pushing the Indo-Europeans out of power in [...]
