Which Islamic empire/country was the largest in terms of total land?

[forfor]

I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

 

[imported_dna]

Is there supposed to be a discussion going on here?
If so, about what?

Seems to me like it is just a simple question that can be answered by googling "islamic empires".

 

[Schadenfroh]

Probably the turks. Islam did not exist when Persia was at its height of power before Alexander came and smashed them.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

You can't really say the British Kingdom was a "Christian" empire when there was wide spread freedom of religion within it. Look at India which was almost 100% Hindu or Muslim while under British rule.
I think to find a real "Christian" empire you would have to go back to before the 1600-1700's and find a country where Christianity was the official and only accepted religion.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Islam only started c. 400-500 AD, so the Ottomans were the largest Muslim empire that ever existed.

And I wouldn't exactly say Britain is Christian, as ProfJohn said. If you want to say a Christian empire, I'd say something like the Hapsburg Monarchy or look at Europe as a whole between 1000 and 1500. Even Byzantium could be considered a Christian empire, though they were mostly Pagan until later on, when they lost significant power.

 

[kylebisme]

Britain was Christian empire back in in the day in much the same sense that Israel is a Jewish state today. As for the sizes of various Islamic empires, I know various ones have covered quite a bit of area throughout history, but I have no clue which empire among them held the most land. That doesn't sound like an easy answer to Google up either, you'd likely get far better results from a decent library.

 

[ayabe]

Yeah the Ottoman Empire, pre WWI was probably the largest in terms of land mass and people united under one banner.

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

 

[MegaWorks]

The Umayyad Dynasty

 

[forfor]

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

That's not true. The largest one was the British empire, Mongols were the largest one-piece empire (no colonies). Anyways, I remember reading somewhere that the roots of the Ottoman Turks go all the way to Mongols... ?

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: forfor

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

That's not true. The largest one was the British empire, Mongols were the largest one-piece empire (no colonies). Anyways, I remember reading somewhere that the roots of the Ottoman Turks go all the way to Mongols... ?

Read it again because it was the largest continous empire and it is true.

 

[forfor]

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

That's not true. The largest one was the British empire, Mongols were the largest one-piece empire (no colonies). Anyways, I remember reading somewhere that the roots of the Ottoman Turks go all the way to Mongols... ?

Read it again because it was the largest continous empire and it is true.

continous is not a word

but yeah, as i said, british were the biggest in terms of total land, but the mongols were the biggest in terms of continuous land.

 

[Alaa]

Muslims smashed the Mongols in Egypt

 

[kylebisme]

Somebody had to do that eventually.

And Forfor, I'm sure quite sure 1prophet meant 'continuous'.

 

[piasabird]

Achaemenid Empire - King Xerxes i.e. Invasion of Greece and Turkey.

This may not be considered Muslim.

20 August?) A.D. 570 is the estimated birth of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Height of power for Xerxes is around 500 BC, so the term Muslim was not used until after Mohammed around 600 AD.

Please Excuse me if I spelled any names incorrectly.

At one time, almost all of north Africa and part of Spain was in their hands all under one empire.

 

[kylebisme]

There is no real 'correctly'. Translations from Arabic and such are all phonetic and can be based on many different dialects, much like Chinese terms have varieties of commonly accepted 'English spellings' as well. Regardless, you can't rightly have a Islamic empire until after about 610 AD, since Mohammad was around 40 when came to his revelation near Mecca, and the empires of those days were most certianly not Muslim.

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: forfor

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

That's not true. The largest one was the British empire, Mongols were the largest one-piece empire (no colonies). Anyways, I remember reading somewhere that the roots of the Ottoman Turks go all the way to Mongols... ?

Read it again because it was the largest continous empire and it is true.

continous is not a word

but yeah, as i said, british were the biggest in terms of total land, but the mongols were the biggest in terms of continuous land.

Sorry meant contiguous

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Achaemenid Empire - King Xerxes i.e. Invasion of Greece and Turkey.

This may not be considered Muslim.

20 August?) A.D. 570 is the estimated birth of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Height of power for Xerxes is around 500 BC, so the term Muslim was not used until after Mohammed around 600 AD.

Please Excuse me if I spelled any names incorrectly.

At one time, almost all of north Africa and part of Spain was in their hands all under one empire.

the archaemenid empire was not muslim. in fact, it was around 1000 years prior to islam's founding. iirc it was zoroastrian.

the largest muslim empire was at the height of the osmanli empire, which was in 1683. they started declining from that point on (austrians and russians were coming on in the north, egypt and algeria becoming essentially independent and then under french and british rule, etc.)

the mongol empire was large, but it wasn't muslim. though the osmanlis may have descended from the mongols. the most famous of the mongols descendants, however, was tamerlane (who was muslim, but was denounced as an enemy of islam by the osmanli sultan, who had taken over the role of caliph). he had a very big empire.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Alaa
Muslims smashed the Mongols in Egypt

Mongols smashed the Muslims in Iraq.

 

[fstime]

Turks are supposed to be decended from the Mongols from central Asia.

There current location in Asia minor Turkey or Antolia is conquered land from the byzantine empire or even before that going to the time of homer and the greek city states.

The Ottoman empire in its peak extended pretty far though...

 

[2Xtreme21]

I don't see why there's confusion. The largest Muslim empire was the Ottomans... anything prior to c. 550 AD wasn't Muslim because Islam didn't exist. Even if the Ottomans descended from the Mongols, that doesn't say the Mongols believed in anything even remotely close to Islam. All those who followed the teachings of Mohammed, who lived between c. 550AD and 650AD, are Muslims-- that's it.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
I don't see why there's confusion. The largest Muslim empire was the Ottomans... anything prior to c. 550 AD wasn't Muslim because Islam didn't exist. Even if the Ottomans descended from the Mongols, that doesn't say the Mongols believed in anything even remotely close to Islam. All those who followed the teachings of Mohammed, who lived between c. 550AD and 650AD, are Muslims-- that's it.

turks didn't descend from the mongols. they may have both descended from the huns.

 

[Kenazo]

Regarding Genghis Khan's religion:

Spirituality

Genghis Khan's religion is widely speculated that it was Shamanism, which was very common among nomadic Mongol-Turkic tribes of Central Asia. Genghis Khan towards the later part of his life became interested in the ancient Buddhist and Tao religions from China. The Taoist monk Ch'ang Ch'un, who rejected invitations from Song and Jin leaders, traveled more than 5000 kilometers to meet Genghis Khan close to the Afghanistan border. The first question Genghis Khan asked him was if the monk had some secret medicine that could make him immortal. The monk's negative answer disheartened Genghis Khan, and he rapidly lost interest in the monk. He also passed a decree exempting all followers of Taoist religion from paying any taxes. This made the Taoist religion very powerful at the expense of Buddhists [citation needed]. Genghis Khan was by and large tolerant of the multiple religions and there is no cases of him or the Mongols engaging in religious war against people he encountered during the conquests as long as they were obedient. However, all of his campaigns caused wanton and deliberate destruction of places of worship if they resisted.[16]

From wiki

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Alaa
Muslims smashed the Mongols in Egypt

Mongols smashed the Muslims in Iraq.

People smashed and still smash eachother everywhere in this world. Your point?



And yes, Iraq took a massive beating from the Mongols that it never recovered from - even today it doesn't have the irrigation system it had before 1250ish....

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: forfor

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: forfor
I know for Christians, it was the British Kingdom. What about Islamic empires? Was it Ottoman? Persian? Which one was stronger? I don't think Persian empire as we talk of it today was that big as in history we refer to many empires in that area as one of the Persian empires? They were all over the place but not one as united as the Ottomans.

The largest continous united empire the world has ever seen was the one under the rule of the Mongols under Genghis Kahn and his sons, and it also was the most feared yet he allowed people to worship as they pleased.

Mongol Empire was the largest.

That's not true. The largest one was the British empire, Mongols were the largest one-piece empire (no colonies). Anyways, I remember reading somewhere that the roots of the Ottoman Turks go all the way to Mongols... ?

The mongols were in fact the largest in terms of land area, having conquered the whole of asia and eastern europe. The largest christian empire was either the US or Russia circa 1900. Several islamic groups occupied the same area, however the ottomans where the only ones to have any european territory, and ats its peak it was quite a signifigant region. And yes, the turks did move out of central asia with the mongols, and stuck in what is now "turkey"

Britian shoudl really not be considered a christain empire, since at its xenith it was probably not majority christain, perhaps not even close.