Where they conquered, daily life usually went on much as before and culture thrived. In many respects the Muslim world was far more civilized than Christian Europe for centuries.
High school graduate, right? No college? Never read a word Belloc's written, right?
"written by a catholic scholar? what a moron."
Actually Belloc was a genius, and considered the world over as the greatest historian of his times. The fact is that today very few people understand history beyond what they see at the movies or watch on the boob tube.
What Belloc knew that you obviously do not know, is that Western Europe suffered from a massive loss of arts and sciences during the middle ages due to the Barbarians' conquering of the Western Roman Empire. They burned the books, destroyed the arts and ignored the sciences which once thrived in Western Europe. But the EAST, (Chrisitan Byzantium and Islam), continued to thrive as before. THIS is why Belloc wrote "In many respects the Muslim world was far more civilized than Christian Europe for centuries."
We don't need people attacking the intelligence, knowledge and faith of Hillaire Belloc, we need many more like him today.