[Achilleus66]

I do understand their thinking of Dar-al-Harb(House of War) and Dar-es-Salaam(House of Peace) aka Dar-al-Islam. This thinking, however, is very old. It goes back to the days when Islam was unified under one caliph and the Christian world was a morass of warring states. In clinging to this thought, the Muslim is living in the past.

You are right that the Turks eventually did conquer the Eastern Roman Empire. But the gist of my article is that the failure of the Arabic siege of Constantinople in 718AD made that city psychologically unconquerable in the minds of Muslims and they did not try and take it until the Turkish Sultan Beyazit made the attempt in 1397AD and it was not taken until Mehmet the Conqueror took it in 1453AD. From 717AD up to 1397AD is nearly seven centuries. Leo the Isaurian taught the Muslims a lesson. And it lived on in their minds for centuries. We need to teach them a similar lesson today.

[Achilleus66]

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[Styria]

What stopped them in 1397?

[Stat-boy]

In all fairness to the Turks, the Turks did not enter the Middle East until the 11th Century, and the Ottoman Turks did not arrive until a few hundred years later. I do not associate Turkish military aggression with Islam: the Turks were fighting and warlike before they found "religion."

I wonder whether Byzantium would have fallen at all if Constantinople had not been sacked during the fourth "crusade." The year-long siege of Constantinople by Western Europeans devastated the city, left it broke, toppled the government, and destroyed its army and navy. The Eastern empire never recovered.

[Stat-boy]

In all fairness to the Turks, the Turks did not enter the Middle East until the 11th Century, and the Ottoman Turks did not arrive until a few hundred years later. I do not associate Turkish military aggression with Islam: the Turks were fighting and warlike before they found "religion."

I wonder whether Byzantium would have fallen at all if Constantinople had not been sacked during the fourth "crusade." The year-long siege of Constantinople by Western Europeans devastated the city, left it broke, toppled the government, and destroyed its army and navy. The Eastern empire never recovered.