The Muslim religion emerged during the mid seventh century in Arabia. Its founder, a man named Muhammad, was a wealthy man and a social activist, who criticized Meccan materialism, paganism, and the unfair treatment of the poor. Around age forty he experienced a deep religious encounter and began receiving revelations from the angel Gabriel. After his death, his followers compiled those revelations in a book known as the Qur’an, which is the Islamic holy book. Muhammad and his followers were greatly persecuted in Mecca for their attacks on traditional religion. In 620, he and his followers fled to Medina, an event that came to be know as the Hegira. In Medina, Muhammad had great success drawing more followers, and by 624 he was able to return and conquer Mecca, which became the center of the new religion.
Under Muhammad’s first three successors, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, Islam expanded by conquest throughout the Mediterranean. Because the Byzantine and Persian empires were exhausted by decades of war, Muslim conquests were very quick. They struck both empires in the 630’s, and by the eighth century they occupied parts of Spain an India, creating a truly extensive empire. Many Egyptian and Syrian Christians seemed to welcome the Islamic conquerors as liberators from Byzantine oppression.
Islam gained some converts in the Near East, North Africa, and Spain. However, its efforts to invade northern and central Europe were not successful. This can mainly be attributed to their defeat by Frankish king, Charles Martel and their failure in capturing Constantinople. Nonetheless, the impact that Muslims had on the formation of Western Europe was immense, both directly and indirectly. First, by diverting the attentions of the Byzantine Empire, they allowed two Germanic peoples, the Franks and the Lombards, to gain ascendancy. Secondly, at the time, Arab civilizations were in their golden age, and their trading with West had a mssive impact, culturally....