>>"While Europe wallowed in the poverty and ignorance of the dark ages after the fall of the Roman Empire,<<
No knowledgeable Catholic would ever say that!
>> the lands of Islam preserved much of the classic learning that was lost in Europe." <<
Northern and Western Europe, the only lands preserved from Islamic domination, were the scarecely settled frontierlands of the Roman empire. It was the land conquered only in the time of Julius and afterward. It had never known the decent government of the Roman Republic, only the brutal savagery of the dementocracies (my own word!) of the decadent stages of Rome.
It wasn't lost, it was never there. The glory of the ancient world lies beneath the rubble of Islam.
>>"While Europe wallowed in the poverty and ignorance of the dark ages after the fall of the Roman Empire,<<
dangus - No knowledgeable Catholic would ever say that!
JFK_Lib - I didnt either, I was quoting someone else.