The Julian calendar was in use when Mohammed left Mecca for Medina.  The year 666.  A date, a mark, and the beginning of Islam.  44 BC a mark for the Julian calendar.  622 is the year of the Hijri in the Gregorian calendar which didn’t start until 1582.

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mingled with fire.  Greek fire was used to defeat the Muslim attack on Constantinople.  The Sea of Marmara was like a sheet of glass.  The year was 666. “2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”

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Go ahead, pick an Islamic calendar converter and put 46 in it.  You get 666.  46 is the number Gibbon used.  46 years after the Hijri year Constantinople was attacked.  A date is a mark.  Gibbon notes the problems with dates.  So what happened that year?

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“Forty-six years after the flight of Mahomet from Mecca, his disciples appeared in arms under the walls of Constantinople.”  source  If Gibbon had known about the Islamic calendar and was able to convert it to the Gregorian calendar, he would have gotten 666.

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“In this inquiry I shall unfold the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran; that protected the majesty of Rome, and delayed the servitude of Constantinople; that invigorated the defence of the Christians, and scattered among their enemies the seeds of division and decay.”  source

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that protected the Christians of Europe from Islamic expansion.  Historians from Gibbon to Captivating History are recognizing the importance of the walls of Constantinople.  It makes me think of a great chain that might restrain a beast.

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just by changing the name of Constantinople to Istanbul.  Before this five key characteristics of Babylon the Great were already met:

and now six

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