HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-03-04T14:48:21.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The overlooked history of Muslims in Europe
items: In 1756, a young Englishwoman was taken hostage by Barbary pirates. This is her story
items: A brief history of Ramadan
items: Trading and crusading in the Middle Ages
items: Jihad and the British empire
items: 'Arib al-Ma’muniyya: the enslaved medieval woman who sang her way to wealth
items: Ibn Battuta: the most famous traveller of the medieval Arab world
items: Why does Saladin have such an enduring reputation?
items: Muslim-Crusader interactions: a clash of civilisations?
items: The 17th-century expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: what happened?

The overlooked history of Muslims in Europe
type: item
date: 2026-02-11T15:20:48.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Islam
description: Tharik Hussain speaks to Danny Bird about the long but often overlooked and distorted history of Muslims in Europe – and the enduring resistance to its reappraisal
encoded: Danny Bird: You open your book by recounting a chance visit to an old mosque in Cyprus. What was so significant about that moment? Tharik Hussain: Nothing changed for me on the day itself, because I knew very little about Islam’s history in Europe at that time. On a long, cheap layover in Larnaca – a place I’d never heard of – I was simply looking for a way to pass the time with a toddler in tow. I’d found a brief reference to a nearby mosque, and decided to visit. At the time (2003), I was preparing to make hijrah – to leave Britain, because I felt that I no longer belonged. My education had led me to believe that there was no meaningful Muslim history in Europe. So when we arrived at this neglected Ottoman-era mosque at the Hala Sultan Tekke, I had no framework for understanding it. The elderly guide didn’t speak English, and neither of us knew what we were looking at. What unsettled me was a tomb inside the mosque, which clashed with the theological outlook my wife and I held at the time. We left, dismissing the place, though the guide handed us a small booklet as we went. Two years later, while working as an English language teacher in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I rediscovered the booklet. To my shock, it claimed that the tomb belonged to a relative of the Prophet Muhammad – his maternal aunt, Umm Harâm. That completely overturned my belief that Europe had no real Islamic history, let alone connections reaching back to the Prophet’s own family. When did Islam first come to Europe? If we look at the very beginnings of Muslim presence in Europe, it’s striking how quickly it arrived. Within 20 years of the Prophet Muhammad’s death in AD 632, Muslims were present in places such as Cyprus and, later, Sicily, establishing themselves far more quickly than Christian or Jewish communities had done in the continent. Some of these early arrivals, including members of the Prophet’s family, were then buried in Europe, their tombs becoming sites of ziyara (pilgrimage), holding gre…

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In 1756, a young Englishwoman was taken hostage by Barbary pirates. This is her story
type: item
date: 2026-01-09T15:00:12.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Amazing lives
subject: Historical people
subject: Islam
subject: Pirates
description: Taken hostage by a Barbary ship’s captain in the 18th century, a young Englishwoman found herself fighting for her freedom in Marrakech. Adam Nichols introduces a brave captive who later wrote a book about her dramatic experiences
encoded: The Barbary corsair ship appeared suddenly on the horizon, bristling with cannon. Its decks swarming with armed men, it sliced through the waves at a clip that its quarry – the British merchant ship Ann – could not match. At that time, in the mid-18th century, such pirate attacks were violent, bloody affairs; if the Ann’s captain tried to resist, he would be risking the lives of his crew, his passengers and himself, and would likely see his ship sunk. He surrendered. The corsair captain swaggered aboard the British vessel without firing a shot, and surveyed his captives. He was one of the infamous Sallee Rovers operating out of Salé, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, who sold any Europeans they captured into slavery. The captain ordered the Ann’s four passengers to be taken to his ship, along with the crew, who were chained up in the hold. One of the passengers was a young Englishwoman named Elizabeth Marsh, barely 21 years old. It is because of her that we know these details. She later published an account of her experiences: The Female Captive: A Narrative of Facts Which Happened in Barbary in the Year 1756, Written by Herself. The corsair attack occurred in August 1756, a few months after the beginning of the Seven Years’ War. Marsh’s father, an administrator for the Royal Navy, had moved his family from their home in Menorca to Gibraltar, which he considered safer. To further protect his daughter, he then booked her a berth on the Ann, which set sail for England in late July. Read more | Liquor, loot and death on the high seas: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the history of pirates Marsh’s family aspired to be “respectable people”, and she had received a genteel education. The future planned for her was typical of young women of her position and era: to marry a well-to-do man and bear his children. Now, torn from that sheltered life, she faced a very different fate. As a young, attractive European woman, Marsh would have been a highly sought-after comm…

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A brief history of Ramadan
type: item
date: 2023-03-22T10:33:39.000Z
creator: Remona Aly
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Islam
description: When was Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting, first observed? And how have its practices changed? Here, Remona Aly considers its history and evolution across the world…
encoded: Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting, has been observed and celebrated by Muslims around the world for more than 14 centuries. In the seventh century, Prophet Muhammad stated that Islam is built upon five pillars and that fasting in Ramadan was one of them. Today, nearly a quarter of the world’s population mark or observe the fast during daylight hours, giving great respect to the Islamic month in which the holy book of Islam, the Quran, was revealed to the Prophet. What does Ramadan mean? Ramadan literally means ‘intense heat’, denoting the scorching summer month to which it was originally ascribed. It formed part of the pre-Islamic Arab calendar well before Islam came to Mecca, the holy city in today’s Saudi Arabia, in the seventh century. When is Ramadan? Muslims embrace Ramadan as the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Moonsighting – the practice of spotting the new moon on the first night of each Islamic month with the naked eye – is a tradition that has endured to this day, as Muslims across the world wait in anticipation and excitement for the birth of the Ramadan moon. The practice of fasting was familiar to the pre-Islamic Arabs, as the Quran mentions: “You who believe, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may be mindful of God.” (Quran 2:183) It was during Ramadan that the very first revelation of the Quran occurred. This took place in 610 AD, when Muhammad retreated to a cave on Mount Hira on the outskirts of Mecca for secluded contemplation. The timing of this initial revelation is given special significance as the “night of power”: “We have revealed it (Quran) in the night of power. And what will explain to you what the night of power is? The night of power is better than a thousand months.” (Quran 97:1–4) Why do Muslims fast during Ramadan? The Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years, and the verses instructing Muslims to fast the entire month of Ramadan came in the lat…

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Trading and crusading in the Middle Ages
type: item
date: 2022-01-11T12:21:36.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Islam
description: Mike Carr reveals how there was more to Muslim-Christian relations in the medieval era than the Crusades
encoded: Mike Carr speaks to David Musgrove about Muslim-Christian relations in the medieval era, revealing how Papal-sanctioned trade was going on despite the background of the Crusades. How to download the HistoryExtra podcast Download as MP3

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Jihad and the British empire
type: item
date: 2021-09-21T11:48:58.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: First World War
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Islam
description: Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad
encoded: Neil Faulkner, author of Empire and Jihad, describes how Britain’s entanglements in the Middle East and north Africa in the decades leading up to the First World War helped trigger a radical Islamic insurgency. Neil Faulkner is the author of Empire and Jihad: The Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 (Yale, 2021) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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'Arib al-Ma’muniyya: the enslaved medieval woman who sang her way to wealth
type: item
date: 2021-09-14T07:14:16.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Islam
description: Coveted by caliphs, lauded by the elite, censured by the pious: Chase F Robinson presents a medieval Iraqi enslaved woman whose artistry and erudition won her emancipation
encoded: “I never saw a more beautiful or refined woman than ‘Arib,” one authority on music opined, “nor one who sang, played music, wrote poetry or played chess so well.” Part Elizabeth Taylor, part Amy Winehouse, ‘Arib al-Ma'muniyya was the most famous (and infamous) of the qiyan, female slave performers of the urban elite of Iraq. Muslim societies produced many elite women, who sometimes held very public positions, most notably the queens of 17th-century Aceh. Yet none confounded the social and gender categories typically ascribed to Islamic civilisation more than ‘Arib. ‘Arib’s birth date is usually given as 797, during the reign of the great Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (reigned 786–809). She claimed high birth, but it’s not clear if she was born to a legal union; certainly, she was sold into slavery early in life. In most Middle Eastern societies, slavery typically involved domestic service to urban households, rather than agricultural labour on rural estates or the like. For ‘Arib, it entailed service for the social and economic elite, and her education was tailored for this market. It began in Baghdad, at the time rapidly becoming one of the world’s most prosperous cities, and continued in Basra, southern Iraq. Not only was ‘Arib literate at a time when few could read and write, she also acquired the arcane knowledge and skills of courtly life: she could ride, compose poetry and prose, sing, and play several instruments, along with backgammon and chess. Such skills made her attractive in the most rarefied circles, and increased the value of her services to her owner – and, with her eventual manumission, to herself. Read about more historical women, in our list of 100 women who changed the world News of her talents reached Baghdad while she was in her teens, and by about 810 she was connected with the caliph, al-Amin. His successor, al-Ma’mun (r813–33), paid 50,000 dirhams for ‘Arib. That sum was remarkable: in the ninth century, a skilled labourer would earn no mor…

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Ibn Battuta: the most famous traveller of the medieval Arab world
type: item
date: 2021-08-30T09:05:47.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Islam
description: Justin Marozzi traces three decades of travels by the unparalleled 14th-century wanderer across the Dar al-Islam – the vast Muslim world
encoded: Who was Ibn Battuta? Revered today as the ‘Traveller of Islam’, Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta was born in the Moroccan port of Tangier in 1304. Of Berber stock, rather than an Arab, his was a family of Islamic legal scholars, an intellectual heritage that would underpin later stints as chief judge to foreign rulers. Few other details are known about his background, other than what featured in his memoir, and even there reliable information – such as the number of his wives and children – is scant. We know, though, that his lifetime coincided with the highpoint of splendour under the Moroccan Marinid dynasty, which ruled swathes of North Africa between 1244 and 1465, making its imperial capital in Fez. This ancient city, where Ibn Battuta dictated his memoir to the young scribe Ibn Juzayy, was a seat of learning known as the ‘Athens of Africa’, hosting al-Qarawiyyin, a complex of mosque, madrassa, library and university dating back to the ninth century. This rich cultural hinterland likely provided the foundations for Ibn Battuta’s Muslim self-confidence and sense of superiority when encountering non-Islamic cultures, such as those in China and parts of Africa. As for his curiosity, wanderlust and insatiable desire for adventure, who knows where they came from? Perhaps he took at face value the Prophet Muhammad’s famous exhortation: “Travel in search of knowledge, even though the journey take you to China”. Ibn Battuta died in c1368–69, aged around 65. It’s not known where or how he died, nor indeed much about his life after the writing of his memoir – which, 650 years later, remains one of the greatest works of travel literature ever written. Where did Ibn Battuta travel? On a piercingly clear day in June 1325, a 21-year-old Moroccan from Tangier fastened his sandals, checked he had everything he needed, and said his goodbyes to family and friends. He was setting out on Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca – a long and arduous…

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Why does Saladin have such an enduring reputation?
type: item
date: 2021-08-09T11:15:10.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Islam
description: Jonathan Phillips discovers how Saladin became a role model – both for medieval chivalry and the modern world
encoded: On 2 October 1187, the sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub – known commonly today as Saladin – captured Jerusalem for the people of Islam. It was the crowning achievement of his career – an extraordinary triumph that ensured his name has echoed down the centuries. Over the previous years, Saladin had drawn together a fragile coalition of Muslims from across the Middle East to take on and crush the Christians – or ‘Franks’, as the inhabitants of the Crusader States were known – at the battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187, opening the way for the recovery of Islam’s third most important city. Jerusalem is also, of course, the fulcrum of Christianity, and news of its fall inevitably provoked outrage. The desire to avenge this loss triggered the Third Crusade, an expedition launched by the greatest rulers of western Europe, including Richard I (aka Richard the Lionheart) of England. After years of relentless campaigning, though, the crusaders left for home without accomplishing their primary aim. Despite suffering a number of serious defeats, Saladin held onto Jerusalem. He died on 4 March 1193, exhausted by the struggle. Over 800 years later, the sultan commands an extraordinarily enduring reputation across the Muslim world. His story is woven into the political, religious and cultural landscape as the man who defeated invading westerners and fought for his faith and his people. Though the victory at Jerusalem is at the heart of his renown, Saladin’s character – or the image formed around his character – is also immensely important. Over the course of his lifetime, Saladin became famous for his generosity, piety, justice and mercy. And though he undoubtedly benefitted from a cadre of eloquent and persuasive literary admirers, the evidence from those beyond his inner circle – even the writings of his enemies – indicates the prominence of these personality traits, and demonstrates that they were central to his success as the leader of the jihad against the Franks, and as a dy…

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Muslim-Crusader interactions: a clash of civilisations?
type: item
date: 2021-04-20T08:08:07.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Islam
description: Yes, the crusades were marked by fanaticism and savagery. But, argues Suleiman A Mourad, they were also a time of collaboration and respect between Muslims and Christians
encoded: Lying in his own blood on the battlefield near Mansoura, his standard covering his grievously wounded body, Emir Fakhr al-Din departed this world on 8 February 1250. He had left his encampment with a handful of guards to assess the army of King Louis IX and devise a plan to defend Egypt from the onslaught of what became known as the Seventh Crusade. But before he could make it back to safety, he was cut down in an ambush. This was a sad ending for someone who only a few months earlier had become the de facto ruler of the Ayyubid sultanate. Luck as well as talent had destined Fakhr al-Din for greatness. His mother had nursed the future Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil, which strengthened the bond between the two families. So when al-Kamil became sovereign in 1218, Fakhr al-Din was his closest confidant, and never left his side except on important missions. One of these missions was an embassy to Sicily to negotiate an alliance with Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Fakhr al-Din achieved much more than that. In the short time he stayed in Palermo, he profoundly impressed the emperor. The two conversed about science, falconry and poetry, and before sailing back to Egypt, Frederick held a ceremony to knight his Muslim friend. Read more: Crusader queens: the formidable female rulers of Jerusalem The two agendas The story of Fakhr al-Din sums up the history of Muslim-crusader interactions during the period. There were times for war a lot of it. There were other times for diplomacy, alliances, friendships, commerce and the exchange of science and knowledge. There were also times when war and peace coincided. This complex legacy of the crusader period in the Middle East is little known. The reason is simple: many modern histories of the crusades have focussed on the violence of the period – and, in doing so, have blurred our ability to see the other side. This was no honest mishap. We have inadvertently allowed modern agendas – one Eurocentric, the other Islamocentric – to deter…

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The 17th-century expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: what happened?
type: item
date: 2020-10-13T12:17:51.000Z
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Stuart
subject: Period
subject: Catholic
subject: Islam
description: In 1609, Spain initiated the expulsion of 300,000 'Moriscos' - descendants of Muslims converted to Christianity - in what was then among the largest forced depopulations in history. Matt Carr explores divergent experiences of an early exercise in 'ethnic cleansing'
encoded: On 4 April 1609, the Habsburg king Philip III of Spain and his corrupt, all-powerful first minister, the Duke of Lerma, authorised the phased expulsion of the entire population of the people known as Moriscos (‘Little Moors’) from Iberian soil. These were all nominal Catholics, their ancestors having been forcibly converted to Christianity in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The king’s order was not made public, in order to preclude flight or rebellion, and stipulated that the expulsion should begin that autumn in the kingdom of Valencia – home to the largest Morisco population in Spain. Throughout the spring and summer, Spanish officials worked in total secrecy to prepare for the expulsion of the Valencian Moriscos. Spanish naval ships and specially commissioned foreign ships from across Europe were brought to designated ports on the Valencian coast. Soldiers and militia forces stockpiled weapons throughout Valencia and also inland in Castile to prevent the Moriscos from retreating into the interior. On 24 September, town criers in the city of Valencia accused the kingdom’s entire Morisco population of apostasy, heresy and “divine and human lese-majesty”, and announced the king’s intention to expel them to Barbary (as the north African coast was then known) to ensure the “conservation and security” of his realms. The persecution of Jews in medieval England Perilous journeys Over the following three days, Morisco families and communities across the kingdom frantically attempted to gather their possessions and sell them to their Christian neighbours before they were escorted by the king’s officers to their designated ports. Not all acquiesced quietly: in October, thousands of Moriscos in the Valencian interior launched a doomed rebellion that was quickly and brutally suppressed. Your guide to the Spanish Inquisition At the coast, some were taken immediately on board the waiting ships and shipped across the Mediterranean to Barbary. Others waited for days and e…

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