Wonders
Wonders of the world on the atlas in the story of Islam: built for it, long used by it, or standing on its holy ground.
Built 691 – 692 CE
The Dome of the Rock
Jerusalem
Built by the caliph Abd al-Malik over the rock from which, in Islamic tradition, Muhammad rose to heaven; it is the oldest work of Islamic architecture still standing.
Built 1199 – 1220
Qutb Minar
Delhi, India
The minaret of Delhi's first mosque, begun by Qutb ud-Din Aibak and finished by Iltutmish, the first sultans of Delhi, after Muslim armies took the city in 1193.
Built c. 1250
The Great Mosque of Djenné
Djenné, Mali
The largest mud-brick building in the world; the first mosque on its site is said to have been the palace of Koi Kunboro, Djenné's first Muslim ruler, in the 13th century.
Built 532 – 537 CE
Hagia Sophia
Istanbul, Turkey
Made the chief mosque of Istanbul when the Ottomans took the city in 1453, with minarets added; a museum from 1935, and a mosque again since 2020.
Built 1632 – 1653
The Taj Mahal
Agra, India
A tomb built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, with a mosque beside it and verses of the Quran inlaid on its gates and walls.
Trade routes that carried it
Routes on the atlas that its missionaries, merchants and pilgrims travelled. The map above draws them in the years they ran.
c. 130 BCE – 1453 CE · by land
Silk Road
After the Arab conquest of Central Asia, Islam travelled its roads with merchants and Sufi preachers to Bukhara, Samarkand and Kashgar, and Muslim traders settled in Chang'an.
c. 780 CE – 1050 · by land, sea and river
Volga trade route
In 922 the caliph's envoy Ibn Fadlan came up this route to the king of Volga Bulgaria, who had asked for teachers of Islam; the Bulgars' furs went south along it for silver.
c. 900 CE – 1500 · by land and sea
Swahili coast trade
Arab and Persian traders brought Islam down the East African coast, where Swahili towns such as Mogadishu, Kilwa and Mombasa built mosques of coral stone.
c. 500 BCE – 1900 CE · by land and river
Trans-Saharan trade
Muslim merchants crossing the desert brought Islam to the courts of the Sahel: Ghana's capital had a Muslim town by the 11th century, and Mali made Timbuktu a seat of learning.
c. 200 BCE – 1500 CE · by sea and river
Maritime Silk Road
Arab and Persian merchants sailed it to China, where Muslim quarters grew at Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and to Sumatra, where Pasai had a Muslim king by 1297.
c. 1200 – 1500 · by land, sea and river
Spice trade
Muslim traders from Gujarat and Arabia carried it to the spice ports: Malacca's ruler became Muslim about 1414, and from there the faith spread to Java's ports and the Moluccas.
Symbol meaning
Star and crescent
A crescent moon with a star, the emblem of the Ottoman Empire. From the 19th century it came to stand for Islam and for many Muslim states, whose flags bear it. It has no place in Islam's teaching, and many Muslims do not see it as a religious symbol; the crescent recalls the lunar calendar of the faith.
Timeline
62 places in order of arrival: when the first believers came, from where and how; when it became the main faith there, and when it faded.
c. 610 CE, main faith from 630 CE · Mecca
Muhammad, a merchant of the Quraysh, began receiving revelations in 610 and preaching soon after; driven out in 622, he returned to take the city in 630.
c. 615 CE, until 628 CE · Aksum
Persecuted Muslims took refuge with the Christian king of Aksum, the Negus, in the first Hijra; the last of them rejoined Muhammad in 628.
from Mecca · by migration
622 CE, main faith from 627 CE · Medina
Muhammad and his followers moved to Yathrib in the Hijra; the city, renamed Medina, became the home of the first Muslim community and state.
from Mecca · by its founder and migration
c. 628 CE, main faith from 633 CE · Yemen (Sanaa)
Badhan, the Persian governor of Yemen, accepted Islam about 628, and envoys of Muhammad such as Mu'adh ibn Jabal taught the Yemeni tribes.
from Medina · by mission
c. 630 CE, main faith from 633 CE · Oman (Sohar)
Amr ibn al-As brought a letter from Muhammad to Jayfar and Abd, the Julanda rulers of Oman, who accepted Islam with their people.
from Medina · by mission
634 CE, main faith from 1000 · Syria (Damascus)
Arab armies under Khalid ibn al-Walid took Damascus in 634 and again after Yarmouk in 636; from 661 it was the capital of the Umayyad caliphs.
from Medina · by conquest
c. 636 CE, at once the main faith · Basra
Founded as a camp for the Arab army facing Persia, Basra grew into a Muslim city, a port for the Indian Ocean trade and a centre of early learning.
from Medina · by conquest and migration
637 CE, main faith from 900 CE · Iraq (Ctesiphon)
After the battle of al-Qadisiyyah, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas took the Sasanian capital, which the Arabs called al-Mada'in, opening Iraq and Persia to Islam.
from Medina · by conquest
637 CE, until 1099 · Jerusalem
The patriarch Sophronius surrendered the city to the caliph Umar; the Dome of the Rock was finished in 691. Crusaders killed or drove out its Muslims in 1099.
from Damascus · by conquest
641 CE, main faith from 950 CE · Egypt (Fustat)
Amr ibn al-As conquered Byzantine Egypt (639 to 642) and founded Fustat as the Arab garrison capital beside the Roman fortress of Babylon.
from Jerusalem · by conquest
c. 642 CE, main faith from 900 CE · Persia (Isfahan)
Arab armies took Isfahan in the years after their victory at Nahavand in 642; Iranians converted slowly, most of them by the 10th century.
from Ctesiphon · by conquest
643 CE · Tripolitania (Tripoli)
Amr ibn al-As took Tripoli on his march west from Egypt; the Berbers of Tripolitania and the Nafusa hills later turned to Islam, many of them as Ibadis.
from Fustat · by conquest
651 CE, main faith from 900 CE · Khurasan (Merv)
Abd Allah ibn Amir, governor of Basra, took Merv in 651, the year the last Sasanian king was killed nearby; it became the base of Arab Khurasan.
from Basra · by conquest
670 CE, main faith from 950 CE · Ifriqiya (Kairouan)
Uqba ibn Nafi founded Kairouan as the base for the conquest of the Maghreb; its Great Mosque became a centre of Maliki learning.
from Fustat · by conquest
709 CE, main faith from 950 CE · Bukhara
Qutayba ibn Muslim, governor of Khurasan at Merv, took Bukhara and built its first mosque; under the Samanids it became a centre of Sunni learning.
from Merv · by conquest
711 CE, main faith from 950 CE, until 1236 · al-Andalus (Córdoba)
Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from Africa and Cordoba fell in 711; it was the capital of al-Andalus until Castile took the city in 1236 and its Muslims left.
from Kairouan · by conquest
c. 711 CE · Sindh (Debal)
Muhammad ibn Qasim, sent by al-Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq, stormed the port of Debal and went on to conquer Sindh and Multan.
from Basra · by conquest
712 CE, main faith from 950 CE · Samarkand
Qutayba ibn Muslim forced Samarkand to submit in 712 and placed a garrison and a mosque there; its Sogdian people converted over the next two centuries.
from Merv · by conquest
c. 713 CE, main faith 950 CE – 1501, until 1609 · Granada
Taken in the first years of the conquest, Granada was the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia until 1492; its Muslims were forcibly baptised and their descendants expelled by 1609.
from Córdoba · by conquest
c. 742 CE · Chang'an
Arab and Persian merchants, envoys and soldiers settled in the Tang capital, coming over the Silk Road; the city's Great Mosque traditionally dates from 742.
from Samarkand · by trade
757 CE · Sijilmasa
Miknasa Berbers, won to Islam by Kharijite preachers, founded Sijilmasa at the northern end of the caravan trade across the Sahara.
from Kairouan · by mission
761 CE · Tahert
Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustam, the Ibadi governor driven out of Kairouan, founded Tahert, seat of the Rustamid imams until the Fatimids took it in 909.
from Kairouan · by migration · Ibadi
762 CE, at once the main faith · Baghdad
The caliph al-Mansur built his round city on the Tigris as the Abbasid capital; it grew into the largest city and the centre of learning of the Muslim world.
from Ctesiphon · by migration
789 CE, at once the main faith · Morocco (Fes)
Idris ibn Abd Allah, a descendant of Ali who fled the Hejaz, was accepted by the Berbers of Walila and founded Fes, capital of the first Muslim dynasty of Morocco.
from Medina · by migration
831 CE, until 1246 · Sicily (Palermo)
Aghlabid armies from Ifriqiya landed in 827 and took Palermo in 831; after the Norman conquest Muslims dwindled until Frederick II deported the last to Lucera.
from Kairouan · by conquest
c. 900 CE · Mogadishu
Arab and Persian traders settled on the Benadir coast, and Mogadishu grew into a Muslim trading town whose sultan Ibn Battuta visited in 1331.
from Basra · by trade
c. 903 CE, main faith from 914 CE · Gilan and Daylam (Lahijan)
Al-Hasan al-Utrush, a Zaydi Alid, preached to the Daylamites and Gilites, never conquered by the Arabs, who took Islam in its Zaydi Shia form.
from Medina · by mission · Shia
922 CE, at once the main faith · Volga Bulgaria (Bolghar)
Almish, ruler of the Volga Bulgars, received an embassy from the caliph in Baghdad, described by Ibn Fadlan, and made Islam the faith of his realm.
from Baghdad · by mission · Sunni
c. 934 CE, main faith from 960 CE · Karakhanid realm (Kashgar)
Satuq Bughra Khan, a Karakhanid prince, converted through contacts with Samanid Bukhara; chroniclers record 200,000 tents of Turks accepting Islam in 960.
from Bukhara · by mission · Sunni
c. 950 CE · Gujarat (Cambay)
Arab and Persian merchants lived in Cambay under Hindu kings, who let them keep a congregational mosque, as 10th-century Arab geographers report.
from Basra · by trade
962 CE · Ghazni
Alptigin, a Turkic commander of the Samanids, seized Ghazni in 962; under Mahmud of Ghazni (998 to 1030) it became the base for raids deep into India.
from Bukhara · by conquest · Sunni
c. 1000 · Kilwa
The Kilwa Chronicle says a prince, Ali ibn al-Hasan, said to be from Shiraz, founded the town's sultanate; its stone Great Mosque dates from the 11th century.
from Mogadishu · by trade
c. 1000 · Ghana (Koumbi Saleh)
Muslim traders from the north lived in a town of their own with twelve mosques beside the king's town of Ghana, as al-Bakri wrote in 1068.
from Sijilmasa · by trade
c. 1009 · Gao
Za Kosoi, king of Gao, is said to have converted about 1009 through Muslim traders from across the Sahara; his court kept Islam while most Songhay kept their own religion.
from Kairouan · by trade
1009 · Quanzhou
Arab and Persian merchants settled in Quanzhou, China's greatest port under the Song and Yuan; the Qingjing Mosque was founded in 1009.
from Sohar · by trade
c. 1021 · Punjab (Lahore)
Mahmud of Ghazni annexed the Punjab, and Lahore became a Ghaznavid capital where the Sufi Ali Hujwiri taught and is buried.
from Ghazni · by conquest · Sunni
c. 1053, at once the main faith · Mzab (Ghardaïa)
Ibadis who had fled Tahert after 909 settled the desert valley of the Mzab, founding Ghardaïa about 1053 as one of its five walled towns.
from Tahert · by migration · Ibadi
1084, main faith from 1400 · Anatolia (Konya)
Seljuk Turks, who poured into Anatolia after defeating Byzantium at Manzikert in 1071, took Konya in 1084; it became the capital of the Sultanate of Rum.
from Isfahan · by conquest · Sunni
c. 1085 · Kanem (Njimi)
Hume, the mai of Kanem, accepted Islam from the scholar Muhammad ibn Mani about 1085; trade with Fezzan and Tripoli across the Sahara had brought it.
from Tripoli · by mission · Sunni
c. 1100 · Mali (Timbuktu)
Founded by Tuareg as a seasonal camp, Timbuktu grew into a Muslim trading and scholarly town; Mansa Musa of Mali built its Djinguereber Mosque after his pilgrimage of 1324.
from Koumbi Saleh · by trade
1107 · Zanzibar (Kizimkazi)
A Kufic inscription of 1107 in the mosque of Kizimkazi is the oldest dated trace of Islam on Zanzibar; Omani rule and its Ibadi sultans came only from 1698.
from Kilwa · by trade
1187, at once the main faith · Jerusalem
Saladin took Jerusalem back from the crusaders in 1187 and brought Muslims back to live there; save for 1229 to 1244 it stayed under Muslim rule until 1917.
from Damascus · by conquest
1193 · Delhi
Qutb al-Din Aibak took Delhi for Muhammad of Ghor in 1193 and founded the Delhi Sultanate in 1206; Muslims ruled much of India for centuries but stayed a minority.
from Ghazni · by conquest · Sunni
1204 · Bengal (Lakhnauti)
Bakhtiyar Khalji took Bengal and ruled from Lakhnauti; later Sufis and settlers clearing the forests of the eastern delta made that part mostly Muslim (Eaton).
from Delhi · by conquest · Sunni
1257, main faith from 1313 · Golden Horde (Sarai)
Berke, the first Muslim khan of the Golden Horde, converted through Sayf al-Din Bakharzi, a Sufi of Bukhara; Özbeg Khan made Islam the faith of the state after 1313.
from Bukhara · by mission · Sunni
c. 1264, main faith from 1368 · Brunei
A Chinese Muslim's gravestone of 1264 is the oldest trace; tradition says Awang Alak Betatar became Brunei's first Muslim sultan, Muhammad Shah, in 1368.
from Quanzhou · by trade · Sunni
c. 1267, at once the main faith · northern Sumatra (Pasai)
Merah Silu became Sultan Malik al-Salih, one of the first Muslim rulers in the Malay world; his gravestone of 1297 was carved in Cambay, a sign of the trade that brought Islam.
from Cambay · by trade · Sunni
1326 · Bursa
Orhan, son of Osman, took the Byzantine town of Prusa in 1326 and made it the first capital of the Ottomans.
from Konya · by conquest · Sunni
c. 1380, main faith from 1457 · Sulu (Jolo)
Tradition credits the scholar Makhdum Karim with the first mosque in Sulu about 1380; Sharif ul-Hashim founded the Sultanate of Sulu in the 15th century.
from Quanzhou · by trade and mission · Sunni
c. 1380, main faith from 1807 · Hausaland (Kano)
Wangara traders from Mali brought Islam to Kano under King Ali Yaji; the jihad of Usman dan Fodio, begun in 1804, took Kano in 1807 for the Sokoto Caliphate.
from Timbuktu · by trade and mission · Sunni
c. 1414, at once the main faith · Malacca
Parameswara, founder of Malacca, accepted Islam about 1414 after marrying a princess of Pasai; the port then carried Islam along the trade routes of the archipelago.
from Pasai · by trade · Sunni
1453, main faith from 1477 · Istanbul
Mehmed II took Constantinople in 1453 and made it the Ottoman capital, settling Muslims there; by the census of 1477 they were the majority.
from Bursa · by conquest · Sunni
1461, main faith from 1600 · Bosnia (Sarajevo)
Isa-Beg Isaković founded Sarajevo as an Ottoman town just before the Bosnian kingdom fell in 1463; over the next century many Bosnians became Muslim.
from Istanbul · by conquest · Sunni
c. 1475, main faith from 1527 · Java (Demak)
Raden Patah founded the Sultanate of Demak, Java's first Muslim kingdom; with the preachers remembered as the Wali Songo, Islam spread across the island.
from Malacca · by trade and mission · Sunni
1478, main faith from 1700 · Albania (Krujë)
Krujë, the stronghold of Skanderbeg, fell to the Ottomans in 1478; over the next two centuries most Albanians turned to Islam.
from Istanbul · by conquest
c. 1500, until 1571 · Maynila
Maynila on the Pasig River became a Muslim town tied to Brunei; its rajahs, Sulayman among them, lost it to the Spanish, who founded Manila on its site in 1571.
from Brunei · by trade and conquest · Sunni
1694 · Cape Town
The Dutch exiled Shaykh Yusuf of Makassar to the Cape in 1694; with slaves and convicts from the East Indies he began the Cape Malay community, whose first mosque opened in 1794.
from Demak · by migration · Sunni
c. 1800, until 1910 · Bahia (Salvador)
Enslaved Hausa and Yoruba Muslims carried to Bahia formed communities that led the Malê revolt of 1835; repression and deportations followed, and the community faded.
from Kano · by migration · Sunni
1866 · Australia (Adelaide)
Cameleers from British India and Afghanistan, called Afghans, ran the caravans of the outback from the 1860s and built a mosque in Adelaide in the late 1880s.
from Lahore · by migration · Sunni
1910 · London
Indian Muslims, many of them seamen, set up the London Mosque Fund in 1910; migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh after the Second World War made London a Muslim centre.
from Lahore · by migration
c. 1916 · Dearborn
Arab Muslims, most from what is now Lebanon and later Yemen, came to work in Henry Ford's car plants; Dearborn grew into a centre of Arab American Muslim life.
from Damascus · by migration
1926 · Paris
Built to honour Muslim soldiers of the First World War, the Grand Mosque of Paris opened in 1926; migrants from North Africa made France home to a large Muslim population.
from Fes · by migration
