this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
104 points (97.3% liked)
History Memes
3233 readers
949 users here now
A place to share history memes!
Rules:
-
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
-
No fascism, atrocity denial or apologia, etc.
-
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
-
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.
Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Explanation: While much of Christian Europe was splintered and only beginning to recover from the immense civilizational collapse of the Roman Empire, the Islamic Golden Age was flourishing, bringing new organizational and material technologies to Muslim-ruled societies. It was not all sunshine and rainbows, but the writings of contemporaries show that it was more than just abstract academic knowledge - a broader culture of public works and public good managed to take root and improve the living conditions of many, especially in the cities.
Much of antiquity, even, was transferred to Western Europe by Arabic translations of Greek and Latin works - scholarship of the Islamic golden age had become much more developed than the still-recovering societies of Western Europe, which only began to regain some measure of parity with the Muslim world in the 1300s.
I solely blame coffee for all this progress.
How did Al-Andalus fall?
The spanish catholics, known as the castillanos, broght al-Andalus to its feet during the reconquista. They were the ones who founded the spanish inquisition.
Well, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition..
No one ever does
Internal and external divisions (Al-Andalus was only a province in the wider Almohad Caliphate) made it vulnerable to Christian invasion, and a member of the royal family/local governor decided to ally with Christians to get his way. Basically ye olde "I will invite foreign powers to help me in this civil war. There is no way this could ever go wrong".