A History of Agriculture in India v2.c55.5

v2.c55.5

The spread of Islam was in three waves. The first was the Arab wave from the seventh to the early ninth century which ebbed in A.D. 809, when Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid died. After his death his empire fell into civil war and confusion. The second was the Turkish wave in the eleventh century. The Turks came from Turkistan in Central Asia. They became converts to Islam and, led by the chiefs of the family of the Seljuks, they conquered the Arab empire of Baghdad and also Asia Minor. They started a fanatical struggle against Christianity. The Christians of Europe led seven Crusades against them from A.D. 1099 to 1244. The third was the Mongol wave in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Mongols were heathens, but in the fourteenth century embraced Islam.