But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania ( allies of Britain and France ) were all in possession of lands perceived in Bulgaria as its own.

The war was already unpopular among Bulgarians themselves, as they were allied with the Muslim Ottomans against their Orthodox Christian neighbours.

The Ottomans were superior in number, but on October 10, 1394 ( or 17 May 1395 ), in the Battle of Rovine, on forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid from conquering the country.

The Ottomans, with whom Bonaparte had hoped to conduct an alliance once his control of Egypt was complete, were encouraged by the Battle of the Nile to go to war with France.

The first group of Ottomans who entered the city were killed almost immediately, with the effect that the other Muslims began to retreat.

The Joudeh Al-Goudia family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by the Ottomans few hundred years later, and both families now share the responsibility.

Later, under the Ottoman Turks, they were severely attacked at Ayn-Ṣawfar in 1585 after the Ottomans claimed that they assaulted their caravans near Tripoli.

Consequently, the 16th and 17th centuries were to witness a succession of armed Druze rebellions against the Ottomans, countered by repeated Ottoman punitive expeditions against the Chouf, in which the Druze population of the area was severely depleted and many villages destroyed.

However, not long after, Yeshaq revolted once again with Ottoman support but was defeated once and for all in 1578, leaving the Ottomans with domain over Massawa, Arqiqo and some of the nearby coastal environs, which were soon transferred to the control of Beja Na ' ibs ( deputies ).

The Ottomans set up defensive fortifications along the peninsula and the attackers were eventually repulsed.

Most of the arriving armies were left on the beaches, which allowed the Ottomans to pour in reinforcements.

The subsequent empires of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Ajuuraan, Adal, Warsangali in Somalia, Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Safavids, Mughals, and Ottomans were among the influential and distinguished powers in the world.

First the Ottomans won at 1371 on the Maritsa River — where the Serb forces were led by the King Vukasin Mrnjavcevic, the father of Prince Marko and the co-ruler of the last emperor from the Serbian Nemanjic dynasty.

The Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans ( Kefalonia from 1479 to 1481 and from 1485 to 1500 ), and remained primarily under the rule of Venice.

Here the Greeks were in competition not only with the Ottomans but also with the Bulgarians, engaged in an armed propaganda struggle for the hearts and minds of the ethnically mixed local population, the so-called " Macedonian Struggle ".

The Ottomans scuttled the four ships present there, but the Greeks were able to salvage the Italian-built torpedo-boats Antalya and Tokat, which were commissioned into the Greek Navy as Nikopolis and Tatoi respectively.

A new strategy was agreed, whereby the Ottomans were to take advantage of any absence of Averof to attack the other Greek ships.

Under fire from two sides, the Ottomans were quickly forced to withdraw to the Dardanelles.

Its exploits during its eight-month cruise through the Mediterranean were a major morale booster for the Ottomans.

The Ottomans were bankrupt and when the European banks took control of the Ottoman budget in 1881, additional income was required from Kuwait and the Arabian peninsula.

After the Ottomans regained control, European money continued to flow into Nazareth and new institutions were established.

A school, al-Harbyeh, had been built on the site by the Ottomans, and the Shihab-Eddin shrine, along with several shops owned by the waqf, were located there.

The Ottoman naval recovery persuaded Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, and the Ottomans were able to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa.

The Byzantines still controlled the coastal strip from Sile on the Black Sea to Uskudar and the city of Amasra ( Amastris ) in Paphlagonia, but these were so scattered and isolated as to be no threat to the Ottomans.

In 1400, the Central Asian warlord Timur had succeeded in rousing the local Turkic beyliks that had been vassals of the Ottomans to join him in his attack on Bayezid, who was considered one of the most powerful rulers in the Muslim world during that period.

Ottomans had to have special justification for conquering fellow Muslim Turkish principalities.

Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, when the Knights Hospitallers were re-established as the Knights of Malta in 1530, their actions against Muslim navies quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans who assembled another massive army in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta.

However, the war soon became unpopular with most Bulgarians, who suffered great economic hardship and also disliked fighting their fellow Orthodox Christians in alliance with the Muslim Ottomans.

More renovations, repairs and additions were undertaken in the later centuries by the Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, the Supreme Muslim Council, and Jordan.

The victory of the Holy League prevented the Mediterranean Sea from becoming an uncontested highway for Muslim forces and helped to prevent the Ottomans from advancing further along the Mediterranean flank of Europe.

In the 12th century the crescent and star were adopted by the Turks and since then the crescent has been a frequent symbol used by powerful Muslim empires such as the Ottomans and the Mughals.

Overall, his reign was a disaster for the Byzantine empire ; in particular, the military weakness for which he was largely responsible greatly contributed to the subsequent loss of Asia Minor to the Turks, and the ultimate fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans in 1453.

Annexed to the Ummayad Caliphate after the Battle of Yarmouk, it came under brief crusader rule as Zakkanin until retaken by Saladin and the Ayyubid Dynasty following the Battle of Hattin where it remained in Muslim hands under the Mamluks, Dhaher al-Omar, and the Ottomans, until Ottoman Syria was occupied by the British Empire after World War I.

The rule of Suleiman and the subsequent Ottoman Sultans brought an age of " religious peace "; Jew, Christian and Muslim enjoyed the freedom of religion the Ottomans granted them and it was possible to find a synagogue, a church and a mosque in the same street.

This policy officially began with the Imperial Rescript of the Rose Chamber of 1839, declaring equality before the law for both Muslim and non-Muslim Ottomans.

In Greece since the independence from the Muslim Ottomans rule in the 19th century, the Greek Orthodox Church has been given privileged status and only the Greek Orthodox church, Roman Catholic, some Protestant churches, Judaism and Islam are recognized religions.

The origins of the Ottomans can be traced back to the late 11th century when a few small Muslim emirates of Turkic origins and Ghazi ( Warrior for the cause of Islam ) nature — called Beyliks — started to be founded in different parts of Anatolia.

The historian Ira Lapidus argues the main challenge the Ottomans appeared to struggle with unsuccessfully, remaining a legacy across the modern Muslim world, was that of a socio-cultural political identity.

After being conquered by the Khwarezmian forces, the city stayed under Muslim control until 1917, when it was taken from the Ottomans by the British.

Around 22000 to 48000 Ottoman forces against 6000 to 8500 Maltese forces, the Ottomans failed to conquer Malta, sustaining for about 10000 losses, including one of the greatest Muslim corsair generals of the time, Dragut and were repulsed.

The Cathedral itself was used as a mosque after the Muslim reconquest of the city, then as a barracks by the Ottomans.

Some nationalists argue that “ the nation was always there, indeed it is part of the natural order, even when it was submerged in the hearts of its members .” In keeping with this philosophy, Al-Quds University states that although “ Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Israel, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists … the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian .”

Despite the imposition of Muslim rule, large numbers of Christians continued to live and sometimes even prosper under the Ottomans.

Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Abbasids, Almoravides, Seljuk Turks, Mughals and Safavid Persia and Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world.

In 1923, following the government program, the Albanian Muslim congress convened at Tirana decided to break with the Caliphate, established a new form of prayer ( standing, instead of the traditional salah ritual ), banished polygamy and the mandatory use of veil ( hijab ) by women in public, practices forced on the urban population by the Ottomans.

However, Armenia had long ceased to be independent, so though a million or more Armenians lived in eastern Asia Minor ( modern Turkey ) they posed no political military challenge to the Muslim Mamluks or Ottomans.

After the failure of the rebellion however, many locals abandoned the area in order to avoid persecution by the Muslim Ottomans.