The dynamic at work in these centuries starts in the year 711 A.D., with the unprovoked invasion of Spain by Islamic armies. The majority of Spain would be occupied and under the strict control of these armies for several centuries. The cultural impact included the demolition of both churches and synagogues. Non-Muslims were subjected to a legal code, called the Pact of Umar. Attributed to Umar I, also known as Umar ibn al-Khattab, this set of laws governed non-Muslims in all regions conquered by Islamic armies, although the details varied from place to place.
The Pact of Umar regulated the lives, and restricted the freedom, of non-Muslims in many ways; for example, it prohibited celebrations of Easter, Palm Sunday, and other non-Muslim holidays; it required that buildings owned by non-Muslims be shorter than the buildings owned by Muslims.
Spain was not the only point of cultural contact. Islamic military forces invaded a number of islands in the Mediterranean - Sicily, Crete, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta - and the southern coast of France. They even organized a decade-long permanent occupation of southern Italy.
Cultural influences went in both directions. While the Muslims inflicted the Pact of Umar on the native people of the lands they captured, they also learned from the non-Muslims. As historian Irma Simonton Black notes, Islam gained scientific and artistic treasures from the cultures it conquered:
From the Greeks in Constantinople, now Istanbul, the Moslem or Mohammedan Arabs and Turks learned about the science and art of Greece.
(Constantinople was not conquered and renamed until 1453, long after the era of the Crusades. But it had yielded its wealth of Greco-Roman classical literature centuries before it fell.)
By 1095, Europe had suffered through several centuries of Islamic invasions and conquests. Seeking to secure a peaceful existence, one purpose of the Crusades was to put a stop to the continuous attacks of Muslim military forces. Europe hoped to end this aggression by containing it at its source, rather than waiting until Islamic armies showed up in the middle of France - as they had actually done in 732.
When Europeans arrived in the Middle East, or ‘Near East’ as it is sometimes called, they saw the legendary horsemanship and swordsmanship of the Islamic military, tales of which they had long heard. Europeans were amazed at the skill and precision with which a group of mounted Muslims, galloping at high speed, could dash through a village and lop the heads off many unsuspecting villagers. European swordsmen were slow and clumsy by contrast.
The knights and common folk accompanying them found much to intrigue and fascinate them in the Arab world. There were the beautifully polished curved steel swords so different from their own.
In fact, the Crusades must be counted as unsuccessful. The Europeans had hoped to put an end to Islamic aggression. In reality, they achieved at best a pause, not a permanent end, to Muslim attacks on Europe.
Further, the Crusades failed to achieve the contacts which Europe had hoped to establish with China and India. Land routes from southern Europe to southern Asia or to eastern Asia were blocked by Islamic forces. Land routes from northern Europe were blocked by mountains, deserts, and frozen tundra. The Crusades failed to accomplish much, as Irma Simonton Black puts it:
The Moslems eventually won control of all the overland trade routes to the East, to the faraway wonderlands of China and India.
The Crusades were, then, generally a failure. Europe failed to provide its own safety, and failed to gain overland routes to Asia. The result was the beginning exploratory voyages, leading to sea routes to India and China.
This historic voyages of Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, and Vasco da Gama were European recognitions of Islam’s successful blockage of land routes. The Europeans, having been militarily defeated in their attempts to pacify the Middle East and open trade routes, gave up trying to use land routes to Asia, and instead launched a great wave of oceanic discoveries.
It was in this context, then, the Christopher Columbus was trying to find a new route to India. The voyages of Columbus can be seen as a direct result of Europe’s failure during the Crusades. Had Europe won, there would have been no motive to find a better route to Asia.
