Sasanian Empire
One persons Sasanian Empire collects dust, then ultimately becomes anothers treasure...
 |
 SASANIAN EMPIRE KHOSROW II 590 628 ADAR DRACHM NAHR TIRA  US $20.00
|
 Sasanian Empire Shapur I AR Drachm 242 271 CE NICE US $9.50
|
| Powered by phpBay Pro |
How did the conflict between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires helped the expansion of Islam?
There is no doubt but that centuries of political wrangling between Rome, Byzantine and various European nations struggling to contend with Islamic invasions contributed directly to the expansion of Islam. A classic example is the Pope's persecutions of Paulicians and Bogomils that forced these non-Roman-Catholic Christians to side with the Saracens who then defeated the so-called 'Christian' armies of the Pope. One example would be in Bosnia in the 12th century. The country ceased to be Catholic and prospered. There were no priests, elders guided the churches in open meetings and the gospel was central to worship. Then Pope Innocent III, with the help of the King of Hungary, brought such pressure to bear on Kulin Ban at a meeting in 1203 that he agreed to revert back to Catholicism. But the people refused! On his death in 1216 the Pope appointed a Roman Catholic Ban and tried to get Bosnia back into line. But the Bosnians deposed their RC Ban and elected a Bogomil. For years war went on. At length the Pope called a crusade of "all the Christian world", and the Inquisition was established in 1291.
Even though Islam was becoming an increasing danger for Europe, with Hungary at the forefront, this did not awaken the Catholic countries to see the folly of destroying a barrier between them and their most dangerous foe. In 1325 the Pope charged the Ban of Bosnia to exterminate 'the heretics' (non-RC Christians). The battle of Kossovo in 1389 extended Turkish rule over Serbia and made the Islamic menace to Europe very great. Yet the Pope continued to persecute non-RC Christians! In 1408 the King of Hungary caused 126 Bosnian magnates to be beheaded and thrown from the rocks of Doboj into the river Bosna. Then the Bosnians, driven to desperation, turned to the Turks for protection. In 1415 their combined forces inflicted a heavy defeat on Hungary at the battle of Usora.
The struggle between Christendom and Islam swayed to and fro on its long battle-front. But whenever the Papal party prevailed, persecution in Bosnia began afresh, so that in 1450 some 40,000 Bogomils fled into Herzegovina for protection. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by Mohammed II, which led to the speedy subjection of Greece, Albania and Serbia under the hands of the Turks, did not stop the struggle with Rome; sometimes Bosnian rulers were won over to Rome, but the people, never. Bosnian kings kept appealing to the Pope for help against the Turks, which was only given on condition of fresh persecution of the Bogomils till at last in 1463, the people refused their king any aid, and preferring the Turk to the Inquisition, made no resistance to the invader. Within a week the Sultan took possession of 70 towns and fortresses, in a country naturally strong for defence, and Bosnia passed permanently into Moslem hands, to stagnate for four centuries under a deadening system destructive of life and progress.
Late in the 14th century, the Ottoman Turks occupied Bulgaria and Serbia, placing these Orthodox states under Islamic authority. In 1453 they captured Constantinople itself, killing the Byzantine emperor and making the Ecumenical Patriarch the virtual prisoner of the Muslim conquerors. Shortly after, Ivan III of Moscow married Sophia Paleologue, niece of the last emperor, and subsequently repudiated Mongol domination. Ivan took the Byzantine double-headed eagle as the symbol of his power.
By the second half of the 15th century, conditions were right for Moscow to emerge as the world's leading Orthodox city. Russian church theorists saw profound theological significance in these events. Moscow, they declared, had become "The Third Rome". They claimed that the church of Rome fell because of its heresy and was succeeded by Constantinople, the Second Rome, But this city, too, was punished by God by means of the infidel Turks. The monk Philotheus wrote to Ivan's son:
"The church of Moscow, the new 'third Rome', shines throughout the entire world more brightly than the sun... Two Romes have fallen,but the third stands and a fourth can never be." The now thoroughly national Russian church thus claimed to be chief protector of Eastern Christianity. What vanity! What a ghastly history!