Yeah. On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the height of civilization at this point and 1 is . . . um, stone age?
Europe on the whole has fallen from an 8 to a 5. (rough guesstimate is rough)
On the scale of the Eurasian world? I would say its certainly no exception to the fact Europe on the whole is lagging behind at first, largely because of the devastation of that fighting.
Yes, for hundred of years, it lagged behind the older urban cultures in the East, due to the different forces that came and went, but its still a stretch for someone to infer that it couldn't have recovered at all without the spread of a specific empire with a specific religious ideology.
Your mileage may vary, but when I look at "Europe", I have to admit to putting an invisible "Christian" before it. The Umayyads are not the same as the Franks or Anglo-Saxons.
My point here was that this accessible part of Europe was deemed suitable enough to establish a permanent Arabo-Berber presence. With the death of King Roderic and the complete collapse of civil authority, the Wali Musa bin Nusayr wasted no time in aiding Tariq ibn Ziyad in occupyin the country.
I would definitely dispute this.
Why? Extending from Pyrenees to the northern Balkans, it wouldn't have failed to have the attention of its neighbouring cultures.
All well and good, but how does this stand next to say, China? Not so good.
I'm not talking about China, which, while it have variable levels of contact with the Rhomaioi and the Umayyad/Abbasid Caliphate(s), was still too remote to influence the happenings of west Eurasia.
Your definition of a backwater seems to be different than mine, and I'm not saying this to spark argument more than we already have.
Is Europe a primitive nowhere, a boil on the arse of Eurasia? No.
But it is certainly one of the less developed areas (as distinct from the undeveloped areas).
I wish to emphasize that my use of the term "backwater" is meant to be relative - that most of Europe is relatively primitive is not the same as it being some kind of Commerian (as in Robert Howard's Conan's homeland) wasteland, even if not especially including Scandinavia (those trade routes are both a product of and a stimulant to being above that state).
A "backwater", as I understand it, is an expression to describe an unimportant area of a country or the world that exerts no influence. Such places, usually if not always, are considered lagging or out of touch on cultural or technological process, depending on the degree of isolation. I was responding to the mindless assertion that Europe, while in turmoil, is doomed to remain backward, simply because some religion wouldn't have become widespread enough to dominate a civilization that colonized parts of both the Mediterranean and the Near East. Europe's geographic positioning and its centuries-old trade links with North Africa and the Near East would have been enough to ensure its long-term recovery. The role of religion in any of this is over-rated. It wouldn't have mattered if they were Christian, Muslim, a differently-conceived Abrahamic religion, nor even a specifically monotheistic ideology. Christianity's success had less to do with its so-called teachings, and more to do with the model of clerical hierarchy and its bureaucratic leanings.
But at any rate, the localized societies of northern Europe showed a tendency to re-connect directly with far-off states without having to rely on middle-men.
