Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!
Conventional scholarly wisdom also held that German conquest ended Roman civilization and brought on the Dark Ages. Belgian historian Henri Pirenne [1862-1935] strongly disagreed.
Pirenne relied on written texts -- what was mentioned:
to build up a picture of the transition from the (Western) Roman Empire to the period of Carolingian rule.
Pirenne's contention was that the Germanic invasions were predominantly political changes at the top of society. That the Mediterannean-based Roman economy continued, that the successor states continued Roman administrative practices with educated secular officials and dominant royal authority based on tax-funded financial power, were culturally integrated into "Romania"
and it was only with the Arab-Islamic invasions and conquest of the C7th that the whole Mediterranean world is split into two,trade collapses and Latin Christendom acquires a much more Germanic and Northern nature.
Almost a hundred years ago, Pirenne argued that starting in the seventh century, Islam was a destructive, indeed a catastrophic, force that caused Europe’s Dark Ages.
Most European historians have disagreed, claiming that Islam was a tolerant, enlightened force that began to raise Europe out of its darkness. The myth of a so-called Islamic “Golden Age” in Spain is an expression of that view.
Enter 'Emmet Scott' author of "Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited” [the history of a controversy] -- in which he takes as his starting point the thesis of Henri Pirenne that the real destroyers of classical civilization were the Muslims.
Scott refines, corrects and augments Pirenne’s insight, and he does so by taking into account two essential disciplines often neglected in studies of this period - archaeology and Islamology.
Arguing that these historians have paid scant “attention to the nature of Islam or its beliefs.” Like much of our media and government officials today, they assume that Islam is a religion like any other. Scott argues that, with its doctrine of never-ending “holy war” against all non-believers, Islam was “an unprecedentedly destabilizing influence.”
Do you know who started this *religion of peace* version of Islamic history?