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.
Parts
» Euripides* And The Crumbling State
» Aristophanes* - He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
» Take The Frogs* for instance -
» Alexander And Logical Thinking
» Rome While all this is going on in the Greek-dominated Hellenistic world, the Romans* are busy
» Roman Writers c.275 BCE - c.110 BCE During The Era Of Senate Supremacy
» From Classical Light Into The Dark Ages The Fifth Century
» The End of the Western Empire in Italy
» Why Europe Isn't Very Interesting In The Sixth Century
» Islam* Enters Europe As We Enter The Eighth Century
» Vikings Move On As Does Islamic Culture
» Theatre Reappears In Bits And Pieces As We Move Onward Into The Tenth Century
» Europe Moves On Into The Eleventh Century
» As The Twelfth Century Begins Economic And Intellectual Profits
» The Third Crusade The One We All Remember
» More Crusades And A Small Renaissance As We Go Into The Thirteenth Century
» The Small Renaissance Part of the Century
» THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE SPACE IN CHURCH DRAMA -
» The Fourteenth Century And We Come To The Down Part Of The Late Middle Ages
» The Black Death* Comes To Europe
» Everything Takes Off In All Directions At Once
» The Renaissance Officially Begins
» Italian Theatrical Renaissance Gets Going
» Brief Consideration of the Range of Plays
» The Winds Of Reformation* Begin In Germany -
» Theatrical Scenery Takes Off
» Background for Spanish Theatre -
» Other Current Spanish Playwrights
» The English Renaissance 1588-1629
» Sources Of English Playwrighting
» William Shakespeare* -(1564-1616)
» English Settlements Begin In America
» Spanish Court Theatre Flourishes
» The French Theatre Finally Gets Up and Running Introduction
» Back in France Richelieu* Pushes Theatre Development
» English Religious Opposition Increases
» England Falls into Civil War
» English Restoration Theatre Begins
» Middle Class and Sentimental English Theatre
» Europe and America in Social Ferment
» Germany and the Beginnings of Romanticism
» American Revolutionary Times Begin
» Melodrama,* Popular Theatre, and Napoleon MELODRAMA*
» Realistic Elements In Production
» Political Philosophy Moves On
» The Mexican War* and Nationalism
» The 1848 Revolutions and Nationalism
» Some of his best known plays:
» 1908 - Theatre Theorists Publish
» New Connections, New Starts - 1911 -
» And After 1914-1925 Introduction
» The Russian Revolution - 1917
» America Draws Back Into Its Shell -
» Second World War and Its Aftermath
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