File:Entry of Mehmed II into Constantinople by Benjamin Constant.jpg

Identifier: sixthousandyears01sand (find matches)
Title: Six thousand years of history
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Sanderson, Edgar, d. 1907
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Philadelphia : E.R. DuMont
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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he conquestnot being completed till 709. From Africa the followersof the prophet crossed over into Spain, and by the year713 the Crescent was triumphant by the Atlantic in theWest, and in the Indian province of Sind, (or Scinde) inthe East. In 673 the Saracens were repulsed from Constanti-nople, and in 718 a formidable crisis came. The ruler ofthe Eastern Empire was, happily for Europe and theworld, a man of vigor and ability, Leo the Isaurian (fromIsauria, a district of Asia Minor), and his repulse of theSaracen attacks on Constantinople, and his defeat of thefoe beneath her walls, prevented a loss which, at thatepoch, would have been most serious for the religion andcivilization of Europe. Constantinople was then thehead of Christendom, and the law, literature, and the-ology which she contained and represented might haveperished in a Saracen success. The efforts of the Sara-cens to enter Europe by the east continued at intervalsfor many years afterward, but they never had any perma-
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ENTRY OF MOHAMMED II. INTO CONSTANTINOPLE Painting by Benjamin Constant RISE OF THE SARACENS 313 nent success in or beyond the west of Asia Minor, andthe faith of the Mussulmans (the words Moslem, Mus-lim, and Mussulman are derived from Islam, and meanthe Righteous, i. e. those who are at peace with Godthrough right doing was to become established atConstantinople by Mongolian instead of by the originalSemitic believers. It was in A. D. 711-713 that the Saracens (or Moors,as the Spanish writers have called them, because theycrossed over into Spain from Mauritania, the modernMorocco) overthrew the Kingdom of the Visigoths inSpain. The leader of the Saracen (Moorish) invaderswas named Tarik, and the place of his landing derives itsname, Gibraltar, from the Arabic words Gebel-al-Tarik,the rock of Tarik. The town of Tarifa (the mostsoutherly place in Europe, having still the fortificationsbuilt by the Moors, and a very ancient Moorish castle),southwest of Gibraltar, preserves the name of

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