A History of Agriculture in India v2.c53.s6: The Arab Conquest of Spain
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c53.s6
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The Arab Conquest of Spain
v2.c53.s6.1
Here reference may be made to the Arab conquest of Spain. The leader of the first expedition into Spain was Tariq, a Berber, who with a force of three hundred Arabs and seven thousand Berbers defeated the West Goths in a great battle in A.D. 711. As compared with the Arab invaders, these Goths were unlettered savages. In A.D. 720, the Arabs reached the Pyrenees. It was Charles Martel who defeated the Moslems at Poitiers in A.D. 732 and saved the Christian Europe. If he had lost the battle, the whole of Europe would have been conquered by the Moslems, and the history of the world would have been different.
v2.c53.s6.2
During the Arab occupation, many families of Christians living in Spain were converted to Islam. Toledo became a great centre of learning. Cordoba in the tenth century was the most civilized city in Europe. It had seventy libraries and nine hundred public baths.
v2.c53.s6.3
The Moors, as the Arabs were called, made a great impact on the life of the people of Spain. They introduced new musical instruments, e.g. the lute (al-ūd), guitar (cītāra) and rebeck (rabāb). The word troubador is of Arabic origin (from tarraba, to sing or make music). The chess, which was borrowed by the Persians from India, was introduced by the Moslems into Spain, and from there it spread to the rest of Europe.
v2.c53.s6.4
New manufactures and fashions spread to the West—cottons; muslins from Mosul; baldachins from Baghdad; damasks and damascenes from Damascus; 'sarsenets' or Saracen stuffs; samites and dimities and diapers from Byzantium; the 'atlas' (Arabic atlas), a sort of silk-satin manufactured in the East; rugs and carpets and tapestries from the Near East and Central Asia; lacquers; new colours such as carmine and lilac (the words are both Arabic); dyes and drugs and spices and scents, such as alum and aloes, cloves and incense, indigo and sandalwood; articles of dress and of fashion, such as camlets and jupes (from the Arabic jubbah), or powders and glass-mirrors; works of art in pottery, glass, gold, silver, and enamel; and even the rosary itself, which is said to have come from the Buddhists of India by way of Syria to western Europe.¹
v2.c53.s6.5
¹ Arnold, Sir Thomas, and Guillaume, A. The Legacy of Islam, pp. 60, 61
v2.c53.s6.6
From Spain and Sicily, where the civilization of the Arabs attained its acme, it transmitted its influence into France and Italy. Its greatest gift to Europe was paper. The Moslems learnt paper-making from the Chinese workmen whom they captured in Samarqand in A.D. 704. The first paper factories were established by the Moslems in Spain and Sicily in the twelfth century. Paper provided the foundation for the renaissance in literature, which followed the invention of the printing-press.