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Wars and battles

Conquest of Constantinople

Partly

In brief

Constantinople, today's Istanbul, was the capital of the Romans in the Prophet's ﷺ time. He foretold that the Muslims would conquer it.

Sahih Muslim describes a remarkable conquest. After the great battle, the Muslims reach the city and take it without weapons. At their first cry of 'La ilaha illallah wallahu akbar', one side of its wall falls. At the second, the other side falls. At the third, the way into the city opens. While they are dividing the spoils, someone shouts that the Dajjal has appeared among their families.

The city was besieged in the time of the Companions, and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari is buried at its walls. Sultan Mehmed II conquered it in 857 AH / 1453 CE. Many scholars hold that the conquest in Sahih Muslim is a different one still to come, because it is won by takbir and followed straight away by the Dajjal. Others connect the Ottoman conquest with a narration in Musnad Ahmad that praises 'its army and its commander', though scholars dispute that narration's chain.

What to do

The city falls to dhikr, not weapons. La ilaha illallah wallahu akbar is worth more than we think.

Where it sits in the sequence

Phase 3 / 7Before the Dajjal

Mu'adh ibn Jabal's narration gives this order: Jerusalem flourishes, Yathrib is in ruins, the great battle, the conquest of Constantinople, then the Dajjal (Sunan Abi Dawud 4294, graded hasan by al-Albani). Sahih Muslim 2897 places the battle at al-A'maq or Dabiq, then Constantinople, then the Dajjal. Sunan Abi Dawud 4292 puts a truce with the Romans before the battle. The narrations on the Mahdi do not state his place in this order.