What did Europe learn from Islam? Not very pretty

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jun 21, 2013 at 07:15

Pete you wrote

The Teutonic Knights fought jihadis in the Holy Land then went to the Baltic and waged their own jihad against the pagans and the Orthodox there.

You are very correct and indeed "Christian Europe" borrowed the following from Islam

1. Iconoclasm and indeed there was for a brief period in the Byzantine empire calls to destroy Christian icons

2. The Crusades came about from the Islamic doctrine of jihad as there is no similar doctrine in Christianity

3. The Islamic doctrine of ayat al-sayf or the infamous sword verse or Q9:5 or convert or be killed must have inspired the Spaniards that invaded the great native empires in the Americas to "slay the polytheists" (Q9:5) unless they convert to Christianity

4. We are all familiar with Muslim claims (albeit a bogus claim) that they destroyed the great libraries of the antique and late antique world (be it in Alexandria or Cteisophon) and this very well is the reason why the Spanish invaders of Mexico destroyed the great books of the native populations

There is no doubt in my mind that the islamic invasions were a huge disaster to this world

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