How did the Muslim Empire help bridge the gap between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance?
336655
There wasn't really such a gap.  People like to say that there was because there was so little exploration and prospertiy during the dark ages, but the truth is that European scholars of the middle ages like Descartes, Copernicus, and St. Augustine (just to name a few) made significant advances in every field of study.  Rennaissance scholarship only continued what they were working on.  Arab scholars who lived during the time of the European dark ages also made significant advances, most notably to mathematics, so if you accept this false idea of some sort of gap in European learning it makes sense to assume that Muslims were the only ones keeping it going.
576191
Nice use of Rome as an example. Only that you left out the part where the Romans treated the Goths and Visigoths as a source of cheap but more often as slave labor. \n\nSounds very familiar.
693722
I think you already know the answer to this question. \n\n Any casual student of history should see the hand writing on the wall.  Rome fell because it's military was over committed, it's cities were decaying, it had high inflation and unemployment. There was an every growing disparity between the rich and the masses.  The Romans faced an unconventional army of Barbarian invaders (the terrorists of their time). \n\nThe end of American world supremacy is not tragic.  Tragedy happens when the end is foreseen but nothing is done ease into a new peaceful relationship with the rest of the world.  The center of world power is moving to Asia.
769854
Hi captain, I have got some thing for you which goes down to early history.\n\n" Charles only spared the lives of those Saracens[Muslims] who consented to be baptised, the rest he put to the sword."--[History of Charles the Great and Orlando, by Turpin, Vol-I, ch-ii, pg-5]\n\n"....460 years later, when the Holy land reverted to the Christian rule of crusading knight of Europe, the oriental Christians regretted the tolerating Govt. of the Arabian Khalifs."--[Rise and Fall of Roman Empire- GIBBON]\n\n"....A bloody sacrifies was offered by mistaken votaries to the God of the Christian resistance might provoke, but neither sage nor sex could mollify, thier implacable rage, they indulged themselves 3 days in a promisenous massacre. After 70,000 muslims had been put to the sword and the harmless JEWS had been burned in thier Synogogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives whom interest or lassitude persauded them to spare."--[Rise and Fall of Roman Empire- GIBBON]\n\nThe critical Gibbon coclusively proves that, "...to his Christian subjects, Mohammad readily granted security of thier persons, the freedom of thier trade, the property of thier goods and the toleration of thier worship. This profitable principle of toleration was observed with more or less strictness, not only by all the immediate successors of the Prophet, but over the whole period of Arabic ascendency."--[Rise and Fall of Roman Empire- GIBBON] \n\nOn the other hand..........\n\n"....when Jerusalem capitulated to Khalif Omer, the inhabitants of the vanquished city were left in possesion of thier worldly goods, and allowed the freedom of worship. A special quarter of the city was allotted for the residence of Christian population with thier Patriarch and his clergy."--\n[Rise and Fall of Roman Empire- GIBBON]\n\n"....And Islam was tolerant not simply to the Jews but also to the Christians. The Christian church in muslim Spain was given large lands and considerable revenues, christian envoys were recieved with courtesy and allowed to take away relics of christian saints and martyrs from the muslim territory. GIBBON says in his Decline and Fall [of Roman Empire], that muslim rulers even transcribed an Arabic version of the canons of the councils of Spain for the use of BISHOPS in the Moorish kingdom. Haroon al-Rashid, the hero of the "Arabian Nights", planted in his kingdom a large number of schools, the head of these schools, his Director of Education, was a chritian named John."--[ The Spirit and Struggle of Islam by Prof. T.L.Vaswani, Ganesh & Co., Madras-1921]\n\nYou can judge it yourself as to whether muslims inflicted more violence or the Christians ? \n\nAnd you know about modern history and who is responsible for killing lacs of people in Hiroshoma and Nagasaki, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan..
1136363
Hi Kim,\nThis is a really broad question... but here's a quick take.\n\nLooking at 4 civilizations -- Ancient Egypt, Romans, Renaissance, and Present-day -- you can see a large number of similarities based on a common theme.\n\nEgyptians built massive structures (pyramids) out of stone. The shape of the structure was such that it could spread out the massive weight of all the stones above it while creating chambers or spaces inside the structure.\n\nFast forward to Romans... they're still using stones, but 2 innovations allow for progress: Concrete and arches. When Romans began experimenting with concrete and learned how to embed iron rods, they created reinforced concrete. Coupled with the shape of an arch, massive weights could be supported from a much lighter, and open structure. (Take a look at the Colliseum in Rome)\n\nMoving on to the Renaissance you can see the use of arches in  Gothic cathedrals. In addition to using arches as the Romans did, Gothic architect/builders introduced elements like the "flying buttress" as a means to distribute weight.\n\nNow look at today... due to advancements in building technology, we're able to construct extremely open spaces by evolving the arch and flying buttress into a truss. Large, curtain walls of glass are supported by seemingly flimsy pieces of steel that when connected for a structure that distributes weight very efficiently.\n\nThere's a wide range of directions you could explore in answering your question... but if you look at technological improvements over time and how architecture has changed, evolved, I think you'll start to see a number of patterns.
918871
I am not understanding your question entirely\nAre you asking about the relationship between the Pope and the Roman Emperor during the Byzantine era?\ntry reading reading the wiki article as a over view, look for the links that tell you what you are really looking for
7517
Well, hey had ruled for a very long time. Resources were stretched, to say the least, and political events in Rome put mounting pressure for things to change in Roman society. \n\nThese two things combined pushed the Roman Empire into collpase like a row of dominoes, one weakness lead to another; beginning in Rome, and spreading out to the whole of the empire.
655056
Yes, it is rather grand come to think of it.\nBut history has shown that what goes up must come down. The caucasian race will have it's day - like the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, etc. and it'd be a time where the baton will be passed.\nIt took many years to build Rome but only a day to destroy it. We've all learnt History sometime in our lives, there's always a change of hands in power.\n\nThe only thing I hope for is that it doesn't go into the hands of some violatile race...like the Arabs... unless they get their act together. \nIt's scary. All known search for knowledge, science, freedom, religious freedom and progress as we know it would just stop and I imagine we'd be plunged back into the middle ages.\nI mean, technically, if you see what the Arabs are doing with their oil money, it's just spend, spend, spend on bad investments and investments with no return, building big cities based on Western technology, lots of religious oppression still and women are still marginally going forward compared to the past.\nAnyway, the contemplation is very disturbing.\n\n\nJenova\n(d.yuffie@gmail.com)
619612
I am not sure what the Islamic Empire is, but I know the Ottoman Empire was around for a long time up to the end of WWI...
237435
The seventh through tenth centuries. From the seventh century, Islam spread from Arabia west through North Africa and Spain and to central Asia over the next century to Central Asia in the west. However, it became split during following centuries. Nevertheless, this period established Islam as the dominant religion of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
747976
Islam has yet to reach its peak. It came into existence roughly 400 years after Christianity and is making steady progress. By the time it is matured it will probably be the dominant religion (and a new one will be in its infancy)
450652
In the past, this was not an issue. the loser was slaughtered wholesale. Rome was one of the first (or most successful) at assimilating conquered peoples. Successful assimilation means you must force, or entice, the conquered peoples to adopt your language, culture and customs. what naturally happens then is a blend of the two - which is also one reason that Rome fell (among many). Because if you are too successful as a conqueror, then you lose critical mass for your own culture.  \n\nYou could draw a parallel with America since they are (or have been in the past) so successful that they draw peoples from different cultures at such a rate that the 'original culture' is overwhelmed with external cultures [like cuban, mexican, other South American cultures, Canadian, and finally Asian influx (including India) via H1B visas and other legitimate immigration].\nForget about crimes and criminality - that is a temporary conflict between two cultures. Think longer term - like 100 yrs being equivalent to one year. Then you will see your own answer to your question. \n\nStudy the past or be condemned to repeat it. In particular, start with Persia, Egypt and progress through the Germanic tribes and the Normans.  You will get a fantastic view into man's inhumanity and the temporal nature of what is considered criminal and grotesque in a given culture.  You may also come to a realization that every species has its time at the top and then some other species will correct the last 'correction'.  We won't be the last.
130664
I believe that there is a gap because people tend to judge Islam without even opening and reading the Holy Quran.  If you want to end this gap we should know each other first.
172300
The Mughal Empire, (Persian: شاهان مغول) was an empire that at its greatest territorial extent ruled parts of what is today Afghanistan, Baluchistan and most of the Indian Subcontinent between 1526 and 1857. The empire was founded by the Timurid leader Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans at the First Battle of Panipat. "Mughal" is the Persian word for "Mongol". The religion of the Mughals was Islam.
718240
There's not a generally acknowledged leadership or hierarchy in the muslim world, like the pope of catholics etc. After the death of Mohammed, caliphs were the leaders in the muslim world and it shifted between warring dynasties. The last caliphs were the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. But when the empire collapsed and Turkish Republic was founded, Ataturk abolished caliphate in 1924 on the basis of secularism. \nAfter that, many groups attempted and still attempt to revive the Caliphate elsewhere, but none has been successful.
25939
The twin streams of Egypt's history converge just below the Delta at Cairo, where the greatest city in the Islamic world sprawls across the Nile towards the Pyramids, those supreme monuments of antiquity. Every visitor to Egypt comes here, to reel at the Pyramids' baleful mass and the seething immensity of Cairo, with its bazaars, mosques and Citadel, and extraordinary Antiquities Museum. It's equally impossible not to find yourself carried away by the streetlife, where medieval trades and customs coexist with a modern, cosmopolitan mix of Arab, African and European influences.\n\nCairo has been the largest city in Africa and the Middle East ever since the Mongols wasted Imperial Baghdad in 1258. Acknowledged as Umm Dunya or "Mother of the World" by medieval Arabs, and as Great Cairo by nineteenth-century Europeans, it remains, as Jan Morris writes in Destinations, "one of the half-dozen supercapitals – capitals that are bigger than themselves or their countries … the focus of a whole culture, an ideology or a historical moment". As Egypt has been a prize for conquerors from Alexander the Great to Rommel, so Cairo has been a fulcrum of power in the Arab world from the Crusades unto the present day. The ulema of its thousand-year-old Al-Azhar Mosque (for centuries the foremost centre of Islamic intellectual life) remains the ultimate religious authority for millions of Sunni Muslims, from Jakarta to Birmingham. Wherever Arabic is spoken, Cairo's cultural magnetism is felt. Every strand of Egyptian society knits and unravels in this febrile megalopolis.\n\nEgyptians have two names for the city, one ancient and popular, the other Islamic and official. The foremost is Masr, meaning both the capital and the land of Egypt – "Egypt City" – an ur-city that endlessly renews itself and dominates the nation, an idea rooted in pharaonic civilization. (For Egyptians abroad, "Masr" refers to their homeland; within its borders it means the capital.) Whereas Masr is timeless, the city's other name, Al-Qahira (The Conqueror), is linked to an event: the Fatimid conquest that made this the capital of an Islamic empire that embraced modern-day Libya, Tunisia, Palestine and Syria. The name is rarely used in everyday speech.\n\nBoth archetypes still resonate and in monumental terms are symbolized by two dramatic landmarks: the Pyramids of Giza at the edge of the Western Desert and the great Mosque of Mohammed Ali – the modernizer of Islamic Egypt – which broods atop the Citadel. Between these two monuments sprawls a vast city, the colour of sand and ashes, of diverse worlds and time zones, and gross inequities. All is subsumed into an organism that somehow thrives in the terminal ward: medieval slums and Art Deco suburbs, garbage-pickers and marbled malls, donkey carts and limos, piousness and "the oaths of men exaggerating in the name of God". Cairo lives by its own contradictions.\n\nThis is a city, as Jan Morris put it, "almost overwhelmed by its own fertility". Its population is today estimated at around eighteen million and is swollen by a further million commuters from the Delta and a thousand new migrants every day. Today, one third of Cairene households lack running water; a quarter of them have no sewers, either. Up to three million people reside in squatted cemeteries – the famous Cities of the Dead. The amount of green space per citizen has been calculated at thirteen square centimetres, not enough to cover a child's palm. Whereas earlier travellers noted that Cairo's air smelt "like hot bricks", visitors now find throat-rasping air pollution, chiefly caused by traffic. Cairo out-pollutes LA every day of the week: breathing the atmosphere downtown is reputedly akin to smoking thirty cigarettes a day.\n\nCairo's genius is to humanize these inescapable realities with social rituals. The rarity of public violence owes less to
934187
How about Rome, Jerusalem and Istanbul?