Islam* Enters Europe As We Enter The Eighth Century

Islam* Enters Europe As We Enter The Eighth Century

710 The Arabs begin reconnaissance for an invasion of Spain*. Led by Jubal-Tarik* (from whom we get the name Gibralter) the invasion gets a real local boost from all the Christians, Jews and disaffected

711 Visigoths who hate the way things are going at home. The Arabs cross the strait from Africa and begin to take Spain away from the Visigoths. Rolling up Cordoba, Toledo, Medina, Zaragoza, and all of southern Spain (which they call Al-Andalus, the land of the vandals, or

712 Andalusia*), they sweep over the Pyrenees and threaten central France. 732 They are finally thrown back at Tours by a rising Frankish mayor called Charles Martel*

(Better known as "The Hammer".) Despite continuing battles with the Christian barbarians in northern Spain, the Arabs settle in to turn their part of Spain into an economic and cultural paradise.

749 Back home in Islam there is a power change. The center of power moves north to Damascus* and then to Bagdad*. The Omayyads* are out and the Abbasids* (taking up the Shiite* cause) are in. The main relevance of this for our purposes is that the Islamic empire splits and the Omayyads* control Spain, the Mediterranean and North Africa, setting up their 749 Back home in Islam there is a power change. The center of power moves north to Damascus* and then to Bagdad*. The Omayyads* are out and the Abbasids* (taking up the Shiite* cause) are in. The main relevance of this for our purposes is that the Islamic empire splits and the Omayyads* control Spain, the Mediterranean and North Africa, setting up their

751 and cultural diffusion. When the Arabs take Samarakand,* they get a Chinese paper- making factory. Paper begins to be made all over the Arab world.

With most of Spain* under Moslem control, Musa* and his son Abdul Aziz* set up a working society with effective and humane rules. Their primary interest is establishing a flow of revenue so taxes are lightened, people are no longer bound to their craft or land (except the serfs, of course) and the temporal power of the Christian church is destroyed. Religion is not suppressed but half of every big cathedral is made into a mosque. All the Christian laws afflicting the Jews are abolished. No Moslem, but all infidels (non-Moslems) have to pay taxes. The Jews who have fled to Africa to escape persecution return to this enlightened climate.

Arab culture is really taking off in Arabia* and will soon spread to Spain*. The books and knowledge the Arabs have picked up from the Nestorian monks at Edessa (in Persia) include Greek and Persian medical texts. A medical school and hospital opens in Bagdad* and the Arab

765 reputation for fine medicine begins. The Spanish Omayyads* make another trip over the Pyrenees and are again turned back. But

the Jews in the invading Moslem troops remain in Narbonne and southern France, where they are safeguarded for four hundred years by treaties with Charles Martel's son, Pepin*, and grandson, Charlemagne*. Which, of course, brings us to Charlemagne, who is really a remnant of the old Roman Empire.