[Guloqkcm]

everyone,
Well work has started on this project. Please do tell me about little titbits of information you find, I will endeavour to find a space to put them in.

Here are some recent nuggets I will be putting in to give you a flavour of the project:

15th May, 1689 - Lady Montagu Born

Lady Montagu's letters back to England from Istanbul helped spread awareness of Ottoman practices to the English. She famously remarked that “The Turks govern the world and their wives govern them. In no other country women do enjoy themselves as much". She went onto to document the Ottoman practice of smallpox innoculation and was sufficiently impressed to innoculate her own son. This disease now thankfully vanquished had a mortality rate in excess of 20%. Smallpox at the time was more common in England than in the eastern world. Edward Jenner commonly misattributed as the inventor of vaccinations, discovered his technique 80 years after Lady Montagu first documented this practice.

14th September, 786 - Caliph Harun Al-Rashid comes to the throne

The Caliph has passed into legend due to 1001 Arabian Nights amongst other things. What is known however is that in his time, the wealth and spread of Muslims expanded dramatically. Muslims developed the 'saqq' system which is now known by the term cheque/check. These advanced promissory notes enabled traders to cash in cheques from their bank accounts in Baghdad on trading missions in China. This system laid the foundationstones for inter continental trade allowing great wealth to flow into the empire. It is estimated at the end of the Caliph's reign, the islamic treasury had 900million dirhams. In modern money this is estimated at around $3 billion, by the standards of their time, an extraordinary amount.

24th December, 1568

One of the most tragic episodes in Islamic history began on this day. The Spanish Muslims known as 'Moriscos' (a pejorative term) were a group of over 100,000 muslims who had been forcibly converted to catholicism following the surrender of Cordoba. Living on the south coast of Spain, they were denied the right to their religion. The rebellion itself was sparked by Phillip II banning the use of arabic, muslim dress and with instructions to destroy all books written in Arabic and for Morisco children to be educated by priests. Unable to bear this, the Muslims renounced their 'catholicism' and rose up. Whilst they received some support from Algeria, this was insufficient for them to withstand the experienced troops of Spain which had become the most fearsome landpower in Europe at the time. Their rebellion failed and the Moriscos were ethnically cleansed from southern Spain, with many relocated and dispersed, the ones who refused christianity were expelled. The depopulated villages were filled with northern settlers. The remaining Moriscos were closely monitored forbidden from any manner of Islamic activity being required to for example leave their doors and windows open on Fridays to ensure they did not do Jumaah prayer. Not satisfied with even this, in 1609, the remaining Moriscos were forcibly expelled with their goods stolen from them on their sea voyages to lands on the North African coast.

^^
The last topic made me very upset to discover and to write about. I have been remembering them in my duas today, very sad moment.

___
Brothers and sisters, please share any important moments of islamic history here.
I am especially interested (but not exclusively), in islamic women and what they achieved. As Lady Montagu remarked, The Turks govern the world, and their wives govern them. I know Muslim women have contributed a lot to our history, i want to honour that.



ps i will make grammatical changes before publishing properly ^^