What happened when Islam met the Roman Empire?
The Muslims began to spread the Islamic religion after Mohammed’s death in AD632. They moved northwards against the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire and its immediate neighbours.
Soon the Byzantines, already weakened by warfare with their neighbours, were driven out of Syria and Palestine, and the Arab armies drove them steadily back. The Muslims moved eastwards and captured Persia. They continued on into Afghanistan and India, which they reached at the beginning of the 8th century.
Other Muslim armies captured Egypt and the rest of North Africa. In AD711 they invaded Spain and pressed on into France. Here they were finally stopped by the Franks in a great battle at Poitiers, preventing the Muslim conquest of the rest of Europe.
What did Islam bring to Europe?
The Arabs joined with the Moors to conquer Spain during the 6th century. These Muslims had a more advanced culture than was found in medieval Europe, which was occupied by descendants of the barbarians who had destroyed the Roman Empire. The Moors in Spain introduced many discoveries in mathematics, medicine and science. They had preserved many of the writings of the ancient Greek, Roman and Middle Eastern civilizations that were captured during the Islamic victories over the Byzantines. In Spain, where Moors and Europeans lived together in an uneasy peace, these writings reached the European scholars. In addition to this learning, the Moors introduced concepts such as cleanliness and hygiene, which had been forgotten since Roman times.
What happened to the Byzantine Empire?
The Byzantine (Eastern) Empire had been under continual attack from barbarians for many years. The Islamic forces rapidly conquered most of the outlying areas of the empire, and by the year 1000 it had begun its final collapse. The Muslim Turks gradually drove the Byzantines out of the Middle East and entered Turkey, and by 1300 all that remained of the Byzantine Empire were Constantinople and parts of Greece. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, ending the final remains of a great empire.
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