Othman (644-656 AD): conquered Tripoli in North Africa (644);
attacked Cyprus (648); captured Persepolis (648); conquered
Nishapur, Herat and Balkh in Afghanistan (651); attacked the
island of Rhodes (654); won at Basra (656).
Ali (656-661 AD): expansion stalled under his reign due to Berber
resistance in North Africa.
The Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 AD): restored Islamic expansion
with the conquest of Kabul in 664. With the construction of the
naval base of Kairouan in North Africa in 670, Islam became a
major naval power enabling the conquest of Carthage (698) and the
invasion of Spain in 711. After victories at Rio Barbate, Lisbon and
Cordoba (711) and Toledo (712) most of Spain was quickly
subjugated. France was then invaded with Narbonne captured in
715 and Toulouse in 721. In the East, expansion continued with the
conquest of Bukara and Samarkand (710), Multan (711) and the
occupation of the Sind region in northwest India (712). The
Umayyads also twice besieged Constantinople in the years 673-678
and 717-718.
In the one hundred years between 632 and 732 AD the Middle East, North
Africa and Spain, regions that had known Christianity for up to six
centuries, were now lost to the followers of the new “prophet.” At the same
time, the Christian Byzantine Empire with its capital of Constantinople (the
first city in history founded and dedicated as a Christian city by the
Emperor Constantine) was under the constant threat of being overwhelmed.
What had to be the response of Christendom in the face of this grave crisis?
Contrary to the opinions of certain schools of thought, Christianity has
never advocated pacificism as an essential part of “Christ’s Gospel of love,
peace and forgiveness.” Rather, the Church has always advocated the
concept of the “just war.” The conditions for when a just war may be
fought are outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“The strict conditions for legitimate defence by military
force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such
a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of
moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
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