221 AH
Caliph al-Mutasim builds a new capital at Samarra for his Turkish slave guard. Al-Mutawakkil later raises its Great Mosque with a spiral minaret.
How it touches Islam Caliphs came to depend on slave soldiers, the road that later led to the Mamluks who stopped the Mongols.
Source: History ·
Borders come from Cliopatria, the open map of the Seshat Global History Databank (CC BY 4.0), and are approximate. Dates before 1000 BCE are estimates, and for the earliest prophets the Quran gives the order of events but not their years. Sources: the Quran, Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim, the Seerah of Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya wan-Nihaya, and standard histories. See also the villains of Islamic history, from Iblis to the Dajjal, and the library of people, nations, empires and places.
