Muslim conquests started with attacks against the East Roman Empire in the 7th century. For defense, Serbs were settled along the frontier. Тhey founded Gordoservon – “the city of Serbs” – in Asia Minor.

The earliest historical layers of Serbian heroic songs can be traced to this period: the motif of the “black Arab” or the song “Prince Marko and Mina of Kostur“.

In the centuries ahead, over and over again, whenever Europe was invaded, Serbs were the first to defend it: as Byzantine Akritai in the 7th century; Serbian knights in the 14th-15th; Austrian frontiersman in the 16-19th; freikorps, šajkaši, hajduci and uskoks; until spearheading the first Christian uprising in 1804 and winning final liberation in Balkan Wars and World War I.

During that time Serbs knew defeats and victories, slavery and freedom. The only Turkish sultan killed in battle was killed by a Serbian knight in the battle of Kosovo on the 28 June 1389. Serbian King Lazar lost his life on the same battlefield. His son, Despot Stefan Lazarević, will be the first among the knights of the Order of the Dragon – whose purpose was defending Christian Europe from the Islamic invaders. Not long after his death, Serbian capital Belgrade will be taken and renamed Dar Al Jihad, Arabic for “House of Jihad”, a name that it will retain for more than 400 years.

In the 1990′, first modern jihadist attacks in Europe struck against the Serbs. Once again, they met firm resistance.

Will the new century, the new millennium, be different?