The Conquest of Constantinople by the Muslims

Constantinople in Islam - 2nd Conquest

Bismillahirahmanirraheem,

All praise is for Allah and may peace & blessings be upon the prophet, his family and noble companions, Amin.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said, “Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will her leader be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!” Narrated by Imam Ahmad.

The Muslims who were reportedly 10 in number at the time were in amazement at this prophecy as at the time this seemed a task far out of reach! Constantinople was the capital of Byzantium and a formidable city of the enemy, many had tried to seize it before and failed including the companion of the Prophet Muhammad SAW named Ayyub (RA) who hosted the prophet SAW as his guest in the lifetime of the prophet SAW.

Other narrations regarding the conquest of the great city are as follows:

Anas bin Malik RA said:

"Constantinople will be conquered with the coming of the Hour."

Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2239 - Sahih

Abu Huraira RA reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying:

“The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A'maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them). When they will arrange themselves in ranks, the Romans would say: Do not stand between us and those (Muslims) who took prisoners from amongst us. Let us fight with them; and the Muslims would say: Nay, by Allah, we would never get aside from you and from our brethren that you may fight them. They will then fight and a third (part) of the army would run away, whom Allah will never forgive. A third (part of the army) which would be constituted of excellent martyrs in Allah's eye (sight), would be killed and the third who would never be put to trial would win and they would be conquerors of Constantinople. And as they would be busy in distributing the spoils of war (amongst themselves) after hanging their swords by the olive trees, the Satan would cry: The Dajjal has taken your place among your family. They would then come out, but it would be of no avail. And when they would come to Syria, he would come out while they would be still preparing themselves for battle drawing up the ranks. Certainly, the time of prayer shall come and then Jesus (peace be upon him) son of Mary would descend and would lead them. When the enemy of Allah would see him, it would (disappear) just as the salt dissolves itself in water and if he (Jesus) were not to confront them at all, even then it would dissolve completely, but Allah would kill them by his hand and he would show them their blood on his lance (the lance of Jesus Christ).”

Sahih Muslim 2897.

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Apostle (may peace he upon him) saying:

“You have heard about a city, one side of which is on land and the other is in the sea (Constantinople). They said: Allah's Messenger, yes. Thereupon he said: The Last Hour would not come unless seventy thousand persons from Bani lshaq would attack it. When they would land there, they will neither fight with weapons nor would shower arrows but would only say: "There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest," and one side of it would fall. Thaur (one of the narrators) said: I think that he said: The part by the side of the ocean. Then they would say for the second time: "There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest" and the second side would also fall, and they would say: "There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest," and the gates would be opened for them and they would enter therein and, they would be collecting spoils of war and distributing them amongst themselves when a noise would be heard saying: Verily, Dajjal has come. And thus they would leave everything there and go back.”

Sahih Muslim 2920 a

The Prophet PBUH is also reported to have said, with various weak narrations, that “The great Malhamah, the conquest of Constantinople, and the coming of the Dajjal occur in (the span of) seven (or several) months.”

Conclusion:

These Hadith point towards a peaceful conquest of Constantinople at the end of time by a Muslim people from medina, so how do we reconcile these narrations with the facts of the ground that Muhammad Al Fatih and the Muslims of the Osmanlı devlet conquered the city from Byzantium and installed Islam and the Muslims as the dominant religion and people of the city?

The city has been a Muslim majority city for over 5 centuries due to the Osmanlı Muslims who built mosque after mosque into the horizons of the city and completely changed its identity.

Even after taking into consideration the well documented errors of the Osmanlı state at various points in history and consistently over their history and aside from who was a good Muslim or worse, the fact still remains that the cities main practiced religion and identity is now Islam and has been for centuries and that transition definitely took place under the Osmanlı state that many Muslims sacrificed their lives for in the cause of Islam, consequently many learned people in Islam reconcile these hadith narrations with the facts on the ground by concluding the Hadith may implicate a second conquest at the end of time, so as not to deny Sahih Hadith narrations of the Prophet SAW nor deny what is historical fact that Constantinople has been a predominantly Muslim sort for centuries & Allah knows best.