Traces of Islamic Sovereignty in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages

Islam once gained sovereignty in the Eastern European region, which constituted the majority of Christians before Islam and after Islam entered there. In this contemporary era, Islam is not the majority place in Europe from the west to the east. The existence of Islam in the region in this modern era is inseparable from the historical contributions of the two axes of medieval Islamic dynasties, namely the Golden Horde Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire. The research objectives of this article are to describe the geographical location of Eastern Europe, explain the early arrivals, and analyze the two axes of Islamic sovereignty in medieval Eastern Europe. The research method of this study is a historical research method with library research and tracing information sources for this study through the internet. The flow or procedure of the historical research method includes four stages: heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results of this study explain that ideological political factors are the most core factors in determining countries to enter Eastern Europe and the two nations that contributed to the existence of Islamic sovereignty in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages were the Mongols from 1235 to 1557 AD and the Turks from 1365 to 1574 AD through raids and conquests against Christian kingdoms in the region.


Introduction
Every continent on earth has a story and historical facts related to each other.
Humans inhabit these continents with various cultures, ethnicities, religions, and [e-ISSN: 2963-3354] [p-ISSN: 2964-416X] DOI: 10.24090/jihm.v1i2.6956 Based on the explanations from several editors above, it can be seen that Islam once gained sovereignty in the Eastern European region, which constituted the majority of Christians before Islam and after Islam entered there. In this contemporary era, Islam is not the majority place in Europe from the west to the east. However, Southeastern Europe is mainly inhabited by Muslims, such as Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Turkey. The existence of Islam in the region in this contemporary era is inseparable from the historical contributions of two medieval Islamic dynasties, namely the Golden Horde Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire. Based on this problematic background, this article examines in more depth about Islamic rule in the Eastern European region of power with the discussion indicators, namely: a description of the geography of Eastern Europe, the beginning of the arrival, and the two axes of Islamic sovereignty in medieval Eastern Europe.
There are several previous studies related to the research in this article which can also be used as a legacy study from the author's research. Previous studies, at least, have a few differences and similarities with the analysis in this article, including: First, an article from the El-Tarikh Journal, by Elda Harits Fauzan and Agus Mahfudin Setiawan with the title "Lahirnya Tiga Kerajaan Besar Islam pada Abad Pertengahan (1250-1800)". This article only describes the second phase of the middle period (1250-1800 AD), namely the stage of the three great empires, each of which started from a period of progress and decline. In this case, the author describes the opinions of historians about the empire of the three great empires. Because these three kingdoms are the guardians of Islamic civilization and have made a significant contribution to the development of Islam  Greek scientists on Islamic thought in the Middle Ages (Gibb, n.d.). There are also differences between this article and the article here, especially on the European theme and area, because this article uses a socio-political piece located in the East, so no significant similarities are found between the two writings.
Third, writing in the form of a thesis from Ari Nirwana with the title "Sejarah Dinasti Golden Horde di Eropa Timur (1226-1502 M) dan Pengaruhnya terhadap Dunia Islam". This thesis discusses the contribution of the Mongols in spreading Islam in present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Poland to Crimea in the Middle Ages through the Golden Horde Dynasty (Nirwana, 2015). The existence of Islam at that time experienced political and social progress so that it influenced the lives of the surrounding community, although, in the end, it still experienced setbacks. The difference with this article is the completion of the regional study because this article discusses the weaknesses of Eastern European Islam, including parts of the Balkan countries, which are not addressed in the thesis.
The study in this article uses historical research methods. According to Gilbert J.
Garaghan, the historical research method is a set of systematic rules and principles for collecting historical sources effectively, critically assessing, and submitting a synthesis of the results achieved in written form. The research method used in this study is a historical research method by conducting library research and tracing the sources of information for this study through the internet. The flow or procedure of the historical research method, which includes four stages, namely heuristics, in the form of

Journal of Islamic History and Manuscript
Volume 01, Number 02, Oktober 2022 collecting materials/sources; source criticism in the form of internal-external criticism; interpretation in the form of classifying the data and looking for the causal law; and explanation in historiographical form (Abdurahman, 2011: 103), which is clearly explained below.
Heuristics is a method of searching for sources, mainly in the form of oral, written, and moving image sources. There are two classifications: primary and secondary.
There is no direct source that is concrete in this study. However, it is only filled with secondary sources, which are part of supporting studies in the form of writings from Ari Nirwana and Sheikh Ramzi Al-Munyawi, and Dusuki Ahmad (for details, please see the bibliography of this article).
Source criticism is the stage of determining the authenticity (authenticity) and integrity (wholeness) of historical sources, is called external criticism. Criticism of the truth or validity of that source is called internal criticism (Hamid and Madjid, 2011).The research in the article has tested several research sources so that credible sources are obtained, such as the work of Ari Nirwana, Sheikh Ramzi Al-Munyawi, and Dusuki Ahmad, as well as several other articles and books so that they can provide editorial certainty used to explain facts related to research in this article.
Interpretation or interpretation of history is also called historical analysis. Analysis means to describe, and terminologically different from synthesis means to unite.
However, analysis and synthesis are the main methods of historical interpretation (Abdurahman, 2011: 114). Some of the facts found from these sources are clearly explained in the discussion section of this article. The unification and integration of one fact with other facts describe the study of this article so that answers are obtained from the formulation of the problem. Then in this article also uses historical analysis to make the article scientific and contextual.
Finally, historiography is the stage of writing, presenting, or reporting the results of historical research. Writing the effects of historical analysis provides a clear picture of the research process, from planning to concluding. Based on the historical writing, it can be judged that the research followed the correct procedures or was off the mark; Volume 01, Number 02, Oktober 2022 whether sources or data that support the conclusion have sufficient validity and rehabilitation or not; and so on (Abdurahman, 2011: 116-117). Historical writing in this study still uses descriptive-narrative and uses little descriptive-analytical.

Eastern Europe Geographic Description
Europe is a continent spanning the western part of the Eurasian Peninsula. The area is about 10,000,000 square kilometers or one-fifteenth of the earth's land area.
Geographically, the continent is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and one country that is part of the Yugoslav federation, namely Slovenia, which is adjacent to Austria and Hungary (Alkatiri, 2016: 3).
Based on the map description of the area above, it can be seen that the countries above are very far from the center of the current Islamic region, namely Mecca and Medina, and the superpower of the Soviet Union was once the ruler in parts of Eastern Europe for decades so that Islam seemed to have no existence in the region. However, this section only described the socio-political conditions of Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Meanwhile, in the next section, it will be explained in a descriptive-analytical manner regarding the superpowers of Islamic dynasties in the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe.
The description above is a supporting editorial to explain the regional studies in this article so that there is no misunderstanding for readers because the core study in this article is the existence of Islamic sovereignty in the Eastern European region and discusses explicitly the medieval period described in the section below.

Mongol Empire (1235-1557)
The region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia was the initial basis for the existence of Islam in the 7th century A.D. The first early Islam was accepted by the Turks, who gradually embraced Islam. The first Muslims of this region were the Bulgars Idel (Volga) to form a succession of the most developed Muslim countries in the Middle Ages (Rasyid, 2013: 245).  (Rasyid, 2013: 246-247).
Historically, the term 'Golden Horde' referred to the 'yurts' (tents) of the khans and other dignitaries covered in gold. The rulers of the Golden Horde Dynasty sat in a place full of shades of gold in the main gathering after Friday prayers with the people (especially Muslims). Other sources also state that the term 'Golden Horde' is based on the skin color of the Mongol soldiers of the Golden Horde Dynasty, having mixed with the Turks with a golden yellow color (Nirwana, 2015: 33). It is impossible to obtain certainty regarding the naming philosophy of this dynasty because the source still needs to be concrete and credible, so the meaning of the word is more appropriate to use linguistic studies based on its name, and the dynasty has indeed existed since the 13th century A.D.
The Golden Horde dynasty began to attack in 1235 AD when Ogedei ordered Batu to complete the conquest of the Western Steppes entrusted to Batu's father (Jochi). In the spring of 1236 AD, Batu set out to conquer the Qipchaq Steppe, Russia, and the surrounding area. In 1240 AD, the Mongol army led by Batu Khan succeeded in capturing the city of Kyiv as a political and spiritual center from the Middle Ages for the Slavic people known as Ruthenia (the roots of the Russian nation). The next phase, the conquest of Kyiv, became the main factor in facilitating the emergence of a new political and spiritual center in the north, namely Moscow. The following year, Batu invaded Hungary, an area that Genghis Khan dreamed of conquering because it is based on Mongol folklore that their ancestors came from the Hungarian Steppe (Nirwana, 2015: 33 (Nirwana, 2015: 30).
After the Golden Horde dynasty invaded Eastern and Central Europe, they began to exert Islamic cultural influence on the region. Many Christian kings and subjects Before the founding of the Crimean Dynasty, a Crimean port city in the centuries following Batu's death, it served as a shelter for princes of Jochi descent who failed to become khans of the Golden Horde dynasty centered on Saray. Among these are the descendants of Jochi's son Toqa Temur who began to settle in Crimea during the strife over the Golden Horde dynasty. They became pioneers in the founding of the Crimean Dynasty (Nirwana, 2015: 65).
The Crimean dynasty made an initial goal of alliance with the surrounding area to strengthen the existence of the Crimean dynasty de jure as an independent dynasty. At a later stage, the Crimean dynasty shared the Crimean peninsula with the Genoa, trying to regain their ports and cities in the southern and southwestern parts of Crimea. In this effort, they entered into an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, which was relatively new in its existence as a dynasty in Eastern Europe (Nirwana, 2015: 65-66 Islamic rulers was able to experience defeat so that their territory was included in the territory of Islamic rule. The achievement of this early stage became the forerunner in the ease of conquering the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the City of Constantinople, in the next period.

Conquest of Bosnia, Belgrade, Venice, and the Greek Islands
In 1462, Muhammad II invaded Bosnia because its leader (Stevan Thomasvitch) refused to pay the kharja land tax. Muhammad II took him and his son captive after a

Sulaiman I and Salim II
The emergence of the Ottoman Empire was a barrier factor in efforts to develop western imperialism, starting with Catholic imperialism pioneered by Pope Alexander VI in 1494 AD (Suryanegara, 2010: 89 The reign of Salim II was the dividing line between the peak of the progress of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of its decline in sovereignty in Eastern Europe.
When Salim II died in 1574, the Ottoman Empire, led by the sultans, could not maintain the peak of the dynasty's sovereignty. The weakness of the Ottoman Turks slowly declined in the 17th century A.D. and got worse in the following centuries (Ahmad, 1993: 409