110. Karen Armstrongfeated the Serbian army at Kosovo Field in central Serbia.
Murad was killed, but the Serbian Prince Hrelbeljanovic
Lazar was captured and executed. It marked the end of Ser-
bian independence and, to this day, Serbians revere Prince
Lazar as a martyr and national hero, and have nurtured a pro-
found hatred of Islam. But the Ottoman advance continued,
and was by no means unpopular with the majority of Byzan-
tine subjects. The old empire had been in disarray; the Ot-
tomans brought order and a revived economy, and many of
the populace were attracted to Islam. The Ottomans suffered
a major setback in 1402, when Timur defeated their army at
Angora, but they were able to reconsolidate their power after
Timur's death, and in 1453 Mehmed II (1451-81) was able to
conquer Constantinople itself, using the new gunpowder
weapons.
For centuries, the Byzantine Empire, which the Muslims
had called "Rum" (Rome), had held Islam at bay. One caliph
after another had been forced to concede defeat. Now
Mehmed "the Conqueror" had fulfilled the old dream. The
Muslims were on the brink of a new age. They had survived
the Mongol trauma and found a new strength. By the end of
the fifteenth century Islamdom was the greatest power bloc
in the world. It had advanced into eastern Europe, into the
Eurasian steppes, and into sub-Saharan Africa in the wake of
Muslim traders. In the thirteenth century Muslim merchants
had also established themselves along the coast of the south-
ern seas in East Africa, southern Arabia, and the western
coast of the Indian subcontinent. Muslim merchants, every
one a missionary for the faith, had settled in Malaya at a time
when Buddhist trade had collapsed there, and soon enjoyed
immense prestige. Sufi preachers followed the businessmen,
and by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Malaya was
predominantly Muslim. The whole world seemed to be be-
coming Islamic: even those who did not live under Muslim