Medina – The city that was never attacked by the Romans
In 1453 the Turkish Ottoman Empire captured the city of Constantinople. For a while Sultan Mehmet actually tried to call himself the Roman Emperor but no one really bought into it. He turned the largest Christian city in the world into the largest Muslim city in the world. No small achievement. If the Romans had held them off, Constantinople would probably look like a Greek Orthodox version of Rome. While Rome has marvelous churches on every block, and magnificent basilicas all over, Constantinople probably looked similar before 1453 AD.
Is this good for Islam? In a way it is because they captured a very important city and it remains a Muslim city to this day. On the other hand it puts Muhammad’s prophetic claims on the chopping block. Muhammad prophesied about an Islamic conquest of Constantinople but it was nothing how it turned out. There are no shortage of Hadith narrations about this event. While the most respected Hadith collection is Bukhari, we don’t have any narrations from there about the conquest of Constantinople to my knowledge.
The second most authoritative collection of Hadith is Sahih Muslim and we have a narration from them. Here’s what it says:
The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them). When they will arrange themselves in ranks, the Romans would say: Do not stand between us and those (Muslims) who took prisoners from amongst us. Let us fight with them; and the Muslims would say: Nay, by Allah, we would never get aside from you and from our brethren that you may fight them. They will then fight and a third (part) of the army would run away, whom Allah will never forgive. A third (part of the army) which would be constituted of excellent martyrs in Allah’s eye, would be killed and the third who would never be put to trial would win and they would be conquerors of Constantinople.
As we can see, the conquest of Constantinople will be carried out by an army from Medina who has just defeated a Roman army. This didn’t happen at all. The Ottoman Empire eventually did control Medina but not in 1453. In 1453 it was under Egyptian Mamluk control. There is also no account of a Roman army attacking Medina. I’m not sure if the Romans ever had an army even enter the Hijaz let alone one that attacked Medina.
The narration continues:
And as they would be busy in distributing the spoils of war (amongst themselves) after hanging their swords by the olive trees, the Satan would cry: The Dajjal has taken your place among your family. They would then come out, but it would be of no avail. And when they would come to Syria, he would come out while they would be still preparing themselves for battle drawing up the ranks. Certainly, the time of prayer shall come and then Jesus (peace be upon him) son of Mary would descend and would lead them. When the enemy of Allah would see him, it would (disappear) just as the salt dissolves itself in water and if he (Jesus) were not to confront them at all, even then it would dissolve completely, but Allah would kill them by his hand and he would show them their blood on his lance (the lance of Jesus Christ).
The Dajjal arrives then the second coming of Jesus Christ happens. I think its obvious that Muhammad believed the conquest of Constantinople would happen at the end of the world. He still expected the Roman Empire to be strong at the end of the world because they’d attack Medina.
Muhammad founded the Islamic state in Medina in 622 AD. The Roman Empire falls in 1453 AD. That is over 800 years and not once did a Roman army attack Medina, let alone the army that defeated them go on to capture Constantinople. Not to mention of course the other stuff that was supposed to follow. I honestly think the only way forward is to be a Quran only Muslim and say that the Hadiths are unreliable, but that opens up a whole new can of worms.
Here is the link to the Hadith:
https://sunnah.com/muslim/54/44
Do you know what Dabiq is?
The Muslim sources many times called all the Byzantines and Romans Rum (Roman).
Many times it does not appear that they knew the difference between the Greek Byzantine East and the Latin western Rome.
They view the Dajjal (Islamic Anti-Christ) and battle at Dabiq as future to us.
Same way Christians can speculate on what and how future relates to Empires in the Biblical days (Rome, Babylon, Jerusalem, etc.)
You’re correct. Roman to the Muslim sources is Byzantine and they’re pretty much correct. They always believed that they were the Roman Empire with Constantinople as the new Rome. The actual city of Rome wasn’t part of that Empire.
The areas ruled by Rome and by Constantinople were Roman, and the citizens were all Romans. The inhabitants of the eastern regions called themselves Romans.