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Europe was in the dark ages (and had no soap!-- no seriously Muslims gave them soap) and with the Muslims in Spain there was the Golden Ages where Muslims contributed medicine, knowledge, technology and other strides in moving forward in civilization. When the violent Spanish Inquistion took place where the Muslims were violently kicked out of Spain (the details are HORRIFIC look it up online their torture was insane) the economy of Spain never recovered after kicking the Muslims out since most of them were merchants and made their economy thrive. After the discovery of the new world the economy started to heal from their dumb move in kicking out the Muslim [merchants]. And according to my former World History teacher the economy of Spain hasn't recovered fully from kicking out the Muslims to this day!! Pretty amazing right?

Europe was in the Dark Ages at that point in time but I don´t think it had anything to do with the Muslims. Islam was hardly a great center of learning but it was the repository of the Greek ideas which Europe had lost.

They (Europe) were doing just fine. In Italy, the Roman empire, as you probably know, was great for the education and economy of Europe. East of Rome, the extention of the Roman Empire was Byzantium, which was a good place to live as well. (Islam got much of its architecture from Byzantine churches.) To the north, much of europe was still tribal, but for the most part they lived peaceful. The spread of Christianity united them, and of course, Charlamagn was great for europe because he filled the power void left by the fall of Rome. His reign was great for education as well.

Contrary to what has been stated in the above, the golden age of Spain actually came during the renaissance of the rest of europe, but the muslim invaders did bring knowledge and know-how that they had picked up from ancient greece and rome, as well as from the pre-islam middle east. Alexander the Great had spread ancient greek civilization to much of the known world. There was also ancient Egypt and Persia, which were two ancient cultures very advanced in science, math and medicine.

In reality, the only thing the muslim invaders brought to spain which was uniquely muslim was their religion.

Also, contrary to what is printed above, the Spanish economy is doing just fine without the muslim invaders.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain#Economy

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age

Was it wrong of the spanish to evict the muslims? I suppose if one wants to argue that, they can, but then one would have to admit that initial invasion of Spain was wrong as well. Can you blame the victims for wanting to oust invaders? I don't.

There were lights of revival of learning in Ireland and elsewhere

Where would the Islamic Civilization be without Byzantine and other Christian ,Greco-Roman,Persian Zoroastrian, Hindu and other contributions?

Europe was ruled by German kings and the Catholic Church. The dark age.

They were innocent people living life peacefully, practicing the religion of their choice...then an army of crusaders came along and converted them by force. That didn't last long though, and the Spanish reclaimed their homeland from the self-righteous invaders.