How Islam Created Europe
The Atlantic|May 2016

In late antiquity, Islam split the Mediterranean world in two. Now it is remaking the Continent.

Robert D. Kaplan
How Islam Created Europe

Europe was essentially defined by Islam. And Islam is redefining it now.

For centuries in early and middle antiquity, Europe meant the world surrounding the Mediterranean, or Mare Nostrum (“Our Sea”), as the Romans famously called it. It included North Africa. Indeed, early in the fifth century a.D., when Saint Augustine lived in what is today Algeria, North Africa was as much a center of Christianity as Italy or Greece. But the swift advance of Islam across North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries virtually extinguished Christianity there, thus severing the Mediterranean region into two civilizational halves, with the “Middle Sea” a hard border between them rather than a unifying force. Since then, as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset observed, “all European history has been a great emigration toward the North.”

After the breakup of the Roman empire, that northward migration saw the Germanic peoples (the Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Lombards) forge the rudiments of Western civilization, with the classical legacy of Greece and Rome to be rediscovered only much later. It would take many more centuries for the modern European state system to develop. Slowly, though, feudalism, whose consensual give-and-take worked in the direction of individualism and away from absolutism, gave way to early modern empires and, over time, to nationalism and democracy. Along the way, new freedoms allowed the Enlightenment to take hold. In sum, “the West” emerged in northern Europe (albeit in a very slow and tortuous manner) mainly after Islam had divided the Mediterranean world.

Esta historia es de la edición May 2016 de The Atlantic.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición May 2016 de The Atlantic.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE THE ATLANTICVer todo
What Zoya Sees
The Atlantic

What Zoya Sees

Long a fearless critic of Israeli society, since October 7 Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi has made wrenching portraits of her nation's sufferingand become a target of protest.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
Malcolm Gladwell, Meet Mark Zuckerberg
The Atlantic

Malcolm Gladwell, Meet Mark Zuckerberg

The writer’ insistence on ignoring the web is an even bigger blind spot today than it was when The Tipping Point came out.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
You Are Going to Die
The Atlantic

You Are Going to Die

Oliver Burkeman has become an unlikely self-help guru by reminding everyone of their mortality.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
Alan Hollinghurst's Lost England
The Atlantic

Alan Hollinghurst's Lost England

In his new novel, the present isnt much better than the past—and its a lot less sexy.

time-read
8 minutos  |
November 2024
Scent of a Man
The Atlantic

Scent of a Man

In a new memoir, Al Pacino promises to reveal the person behind the actor. But is he holding something back?

time-read
5 minutos  |
November 2024
CATCHING THE CARJACKERS
The Atlantic

CATCHING THE CARJACKERS

ON THE ROAD WITH AN ELITE POLICE UNIT AS IT COMBATS A CRIME WAVE

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
THE RIGHT-WING PLAN TO MAKE EVERYONE AN INFORMANT
The Atlantic

THE RIGHT-WING PLAN TO MAKE EVERYONE AN INFORMANT

In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
The Playwright in the Age of AI
The Atlantic

The Playwright in the Age of AI

In his new play, McNeal, Ayad Akhtar confronts, and subverts, the idea that artificial intelligence threatens human ingenuity.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
Is Forgiveness Possible?
The Atlantic

Is Forgiveness Possible?

Thirty years after the genocide in Rwanda

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024
WASHINGTON'S NIGHTMARE
The Atlantic

WASHINGTON'S NIGHTMARE

DONALD TRUMP IS THE TYRANT THE FIRST PRESIDENT FEARED.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 2024