Abbasid Decline and the Spread of Islamic Civilization to South and Southeast Asia

The Christian Crusades

•The Crusades had an important impact upon the Christian world through intensifying the existing European borrowing of the more sophisticated technology, architecture, medicine, mathematics, science, and general culture of Muslim civilization.

•Europeans recovered much Greek learning lost after the fall of Rome.

•Italian merchants remained in Islamic centers after the Crusader defeat and were far more important carriers of Islamic advanced knowledge than the Christian warriors.

•Muslim peoples were little interested in aspects of European civilization.