God's Crucible' examines how Islam shaped Europe (David Levering Lewis) by Lisa Montanarelli
In "God's Crucible," Levering Lewis explores Islam's seminal role in shaping Europe. From 711 to 1492, emerging Europeans shared a landmass with a far more sophisticated Islamic civilization. This Muslim world transmitted its own innovations and much of classical culture to Europe. Yet traditional "Western Civ" courses skip blithely from Rome to the Renaissance, barely footnoting Islam. "God's Crucible" opens with the Muslims' meteoric conquests. For the first six centuries of the Common Era, denizens of the Arabian Peninsula stood on the sidelines as imperial Rome and Iran exhausted themselves in "history's longest demolition derby," leaving a Fertile Crescent power vacuum. After Muhammad died in 632, the newly converted Muslims roared out of Arabia "motivated as much by the spoils of war as by religious zeal ... ancient greed soldered to a new ideology." They gave their adversaries a choice: convert to Islam, don't convert and pay a head tax, or fight. Upon hearing these terms, many potential foes sheathed their swords. Within 15 years of the Prophet's death, Muslims had vanquished Persia, whittled down Byzantium and built an empire whose size rivaled imperial Rome's at its height.
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