HIST-102 Lecture 45: The Islamic Empire and Catholic Greivances
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Morocco, not to mention the mainly arabic "umayyad holdouts who retained control over spain. Without sufficiently sustaining commercial contacts among themselves, each muslin state had to turn instead to ties with christian europe, which led in turn to new muslim raids. These were less of an invasive nature than they were an attempt to secure trading zones and areas of influence. The breakup of that empire opened the door to renewed contact and a sparking of economic vitality. But that does not mean that in the short term at least the renewed muslim attacks were any less destructive. The attack on rome in 846, for example, left thousands of dead in the streets and reduced hundreds of churches to ashes. The arab seizure of sicily, in particular, left tens of thousands of latin and greek christians dead, homeless, or exiled, and thereby created a particularly sensitive focal point for ethnic and religious antagonism.