7th century: c. 600 - c. 700 - Oxford Reference https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/97801917355...

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Oxford Reference

Timeline: 7th century

Years: c. 600 - c. 700 Subject: History, Early history (500
CE to 1500)
Publisher: HistoryWorld Online Publication Date: 2012
Current online version: 2012 eISBN: 9780191735509

Year Event

C. 600 Ritual intoning of the psalms, derived from Jewish synagogues, is formalized in Christian
worship as Gregorian chant

The classic form of Arabic poetry, predating Islam, evolves as the qasidah

The distinction between capital and lower-case emerges in the scriptoria of the Irish
monasteries

The Scots, a tribal group of northern Ireland, extend their kingdom across the sea into
Scotland

The walls of caves at Ajanta are profusely decorated with Buddhist murals

607 Prince Shotoku Taishi, an enthusiastic patron of Buddhism, builds the Horyuji temple and
pagoda at Nara

C. 610 St Columban founds a monastery at Bobbio, the furthest outpost of Celtic Christianity

The Grand Canal is constructed in China, joining a network of existing waterways to link the
Yangtze and Yellow rivers

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C. 613 Muhammad begins preaching in Mecca the message of Allah, dictated to him by the
archangel Gabriel

614 Jerusalem falls to the Persian emperor Khosrau II after a siege of a month, and it is said
that 60,000 Christians are massacred

615 When the Persians sack Jerusalem, they carry off to Ctesiphon Christianity's most sacred
relic - the True Cross

618 A high official of the Sui empire seizes power and establishes one of China's greatest
dynasties, the T'ang

C. 620 The Irish monk St Aidan moves from Iona to establish a monastery on Lindisfarne

622 Muhammad departs from Mecca and settles in Medina, in the event known as the Hegira

The year of the Hegira (Muhammad's move from Mecca to Medina) becomes Anno Hegirae
or AH1, the first year in Muslim chronology

C. 625 The treasure of an Anglo-Saxon king (possibly Raedwald, who dies at this time) is buried in
a 90-foot-long ship at Sutton Hoo

627 The Byzantine emperor Heraclius recovers the True Cross from Ctesiphon

630 Mecca becomes the holy city of Islam and soon all Arabia accepts the new religion

632 The death of Muhammad at Medina is followed by the election of the first caliph, Abu Bakr,
a father-in-law of the prophet

634 Omar, another father-in-law of Muhammad, is elected as the second Muslim caliph (the
word means 'successor to the Messenger of God')

Within two years of the death of Muhammad, the Arabs surge north into the Syrian desert

637 The Arabs defeat a Persian army at Kadisiya and then sack the city of Ctesiphon, effectively
bringing to an end the Sassanian dynasty

638 The Arab capture of Jerusalem brings Palestine and Syria under Muslim control

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642 The unopposed capture of Alexandria by the Arabs completes the Muslim conquest of Egypt

643 The Coptic Christians of Egypt become isolated after the Muslim conquest

644 After the assassination of Omar, Othman is elected as the third Muslim caliph

A document makes the first known reference to windmills, in use in Persia

C. 650 At Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road, as many as 500 caves are decorated with Buddhist
murals

In the Frankish kingdoms the 'mayors of the palace' steadily become more powerful than
their nominal masters, the Merovingian kings

The Book of Durrow, one of the earliest of the great Celtic manuscripts, is written and
illuminated in Ireland

Under the caliph Othman, the revelations made to Muhammad are collected in their
definitive form as the Qur'an

Jews and Christians, sharing with Muslims the status of 'people of the book', are promised
religious tolerance in the Qur'an

The Vikings develop the fast and narrow longships with which they raid across the North
Sea

Songtsen Gampo builds temples in Lhasa for his two Buddhist wives, thus introducing the
religion to Tibet

Thonmi Sambhota, a student of Sanskrit, devises a way of writing Tibetan and produces
treatises on Tibetan grammar

656 Othman is assassinated, and Ali wins power as the fourth Muslim caliph - defeating
Muhammad's widow Aisha at the 'battle of the camel' near Basra

661 Ali is assassinated and Mu'awiya becomes the fifth Muslim caliph, establishing the
Umayyad dynasty

The emergence of the Shi'a party creates a major schism within Islam

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664 The king of Northumbria summons a synod at Whitby to hear the arguments of Roman and
Celtic Christians, then opts for Rome

670 The Arabs establish a garrison town at Kairouan, as a base for the conquest of northwest
Africa

With the entire middle east under their control, the Arabs make Damascus the capital of the
Umayyad caliphate

674 A Muslim fleet attacking Constantinople is deterred by the first known use of the Byzantine
secret recipe for 'Greek fire'

680 Husayn, the son of Ali, dies at Karbala in a battle against rival Muslims and becomes the
most holy of Shi'ite martyrs

C. 687 With a victory at Tertry, Pepin II wins effective control over all three Frankish kingdoms

691 The Dome of the Rock is completed as a Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

695 Willibrord, recently arrived from England to convert the Frisians, is consecrated archbishop
of a new see in Utrecht

698 Carthage is captured from the Byzantines by the Arabs and is finally destroyed, though
Tunis will later rise nearby

The Lindisfarne Gospels are written and illuminated by Celtic monks on the Scottish island
of Lindisfarne

C. 700 Shortage of manpower in the Muslim armies causes a change of policy, with non-Arabs now
allowed to convert to Islam

The African slave trade through the Sahara is so extensive that a new town, Zawila, is
established as a trading station

The discovery of the technique of porcelain, the most delicate of all forms of pottery, is
made in China

Turkish tribes, northern neighbours of the Muslims in central Asia, begin to adopt Islam as
their religion

The earliest two Turkish states are the confederation of Gök Türk and the empire of the

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Khazars

The quipu is used in the Wari culture and becomes the standard recording device of the
Andean civilizations

The ancient kingdom of Ghana is the first to be established at the southern end of the
Saharan trade routes

Many Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have by now amalgamated, until there are just the seven of
the Heptarchy

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