From the first humans to 1945 · two rails, one story

The World Through Time

“In their stories there is truly a lesson for people of understanding.”

Quran 12:111

Two rails run side by side. On the gold rail: the line of the prophets — from the first humans, through Abraham, Moses and Jesus, to Muhammad (PBUH) and the empires that followed. On the silver rail: the wider world — Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, the Americas, and everyone else who was alive at the same moment. Open any entry to see the world map of that age: who ruled where, what each place was called then, and what it is called now.

The line of the prophets The wider world ‖ Islamic dating (AH) begins at the migration to Madinah, 622 CE

How to use this timeline

1Scroll the two rails. Gold entries (right) follow the line of the prophets and the civilisations that grew from it. Silver entries (left) are the wider world. When they sit side by side, they were happening at the same time.

2Click any entry. It opens the world map of that exact era — real borders, drawn from historical map data, not modern ones.

3Hover the map. Any territory tells you who ruled it then. Gold pins are the places in that story, with their old name, their name today, and their coordinates.

4Open the panels. Every era has its languages, money, daily life, politics, trade, wonders — and a Moral Ledger naming that age's worst injustices and its fairest societies, whoever they were.

No background knowledge is assumed. Religious terms are explained in plain English, with the original word in brackets. Dates before about 2000 BC are left undated on purpose — the sources give the order of events, not the years, and this site does not invent them.

1 AH · the Hijri calendar begins