Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/357

 CHAPTER XI

THE EXPANSION OF THE SARACENS

GENERAL REMARKS, ASIA, EGYPT

The migration of the Teutonic tribes and the expansion of the Saracens form the basis of the history of the Middle Ages. As the migrations laid the foundation for the development of the Western States, the diffusion of the Saracens gave the form which it has kept till our own day to the ancient contrast of East and West. These two movements gave birth to the severance between Christian Europe and the Muslim East, momentous not only throughout the Middle Ages but even to the present day. True, Spain was long included in the Muslim territory, while Eastern Europe and Asia Minor formed part of the Christian sphere, but these later changes simply alter the geographical aspect; the origin of the contrast, affecting universal history, dates back to the seventh century.

The Middle Ages regarded the severance from such a one-sided ecclesiastical and clerical point of view as was bound to obscure the comprehension of historical facts. The popular version of the matter, even among the cultured classes of to-day, is still under the spell of this tradition: — "Inspired by their prophet, the Arab hordes fall upon the Christian nations, to convert them to Islām at the point of the sword. The thread of ancient development is torn completely asunder; a new civilisation, that of Islām, created by the Arabs, takes the place of the older civilisation of Christianity; the eastern and western countries are opposed to each other on terms of complete estrangement, reacting on each other only during the period of the crusades.” If we look into Arabian sources with this idea before us, we shall find it fully confirmed, for Arabian tradition also took its bearings from the ecclesiastical standpoint, like the tradition of the West; with one as with the other everything commenced with Mahomet and the expansion of the Arabs; Mahomet and the first Caliphs made all things anew and substantially created the civilisation of Islām. It is only in recent times that historical research has led away from this line of thought. We recognise now the historical continuity. Islām emerges from its