Women can be the Islamic barbarians trojan horse--the West should smuggle birth control capabilities to Islamic women...nip them in the bud so to speak.
Here's more of your remedial History class. Keep in mind the Moors were Islamic fighters spreading their religion with the usual violence:
Spanish History: 700 YEAR WAR AGAINST THE MOORS in SPAIN AND THE TRIBUTE OF 100 GOTHIC VIRGINS PER YEAR
Isolated pockets of Gothic resistance held out to the Moors in Spain. In the north an enclave only secured its existence by being forced to enter a treaty with the Moors in terms of which the Goths had to hand over 100 Gothic virgins a year to the Moorish leaders for use in their harems - a painful tribute which continued until 791 AD, when the Goths once more became strong enough to break the terms of the treaty.
THE MOORS ATTACK FRANCE--The Moors did however not rest with the conquest of Spain. Their Holy War forced them on, and in 722, they crossed the Pyrenees and invaded Gothic Gaul (France), seizing several towns in the south of that country.
Ten years later, in 732, they launched what was to be their final bid to overcome all of Western Europe when a massive army under the command of the Moorish governor of Spain, Abd arRahman, began laying waste to large parts of Frankish and Gothic France.
The Goths in Aquitaine, under their leader Eudes, were defeated at Garonne, and they were forced back into central France, carrying with them news of the Moorish invasion.
CHARLES MARTEL SAVES EUROPE - 732 AD
France had, since the fall of the Roman Empire, been consolidated under a leading Celtic/Indo-European tribe called the Franks, who were based in the region surrounding present day Paris. The Frankish king at the time of the Moorish invasion, Charles Martel, (Charles the Hammer) immediately mobilized a counter attack.
The armies of Charles Martel and Abd arRahman met in battle between the towns of Tours and Potiers in Central France in October 732. The battle was one of the most momentous in history. Defeat would have meant that all of Western Europe might have fallen under the sway of Islam, and the races from the East would have poured into continental Europe.
An epic seven day battle for Europe followed. One medieval account states that 375,000 Moors were killed. Although this is probably an exaggeration, it does indicate the way the battle went - the Islamic army was utterly defeated by the European army.
In the first six days of the battle, the archers and cavalry of the Moors seemed to have the advantage, but on the seventh day, the main body of fighting closed to hand to hand combat. Here the greater physical stature of the Germanics counted for more - with the Frankish King Charles earning the name "hammer" at this battle in recognition of the mighty and fatal strokes with which he personally killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Moors.
Having failed to break the Germanic lines in the hand to hand combat, the Moorish alliance retreated. The units, comprising men made up from Arabia and Africa were stunned by their first major defeat and broke up in disarray, each blaming the other, giving victory to the Germanics.
The Moors fled south of the Pyrenees back into Spain, and awaited the Frankish drive south which would drive them back into Africa.
This did not come - Charles Martel had exhausted the wealth of the Frankish empire in drawing together an army big enough to defeat the Moors. He was forced to seize a portion of the Church's wealth, an act for which the Christians condemned him strongly, even though if he had failed, Christianity would have been replaced by Islam.
Charles Martel's greatest achievement was the defeat of the Muslim invasion of France. This single act prevented the Arabs and North Africans from penetrating right into Western Europe and turning it into another Middle East - Charles Martel can truly be credited with saving Western Europe from destruction at that point in history.
FURTHER FRANKISH CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE MOORS
In 755, a local invasion by Franks conquered the town of Narbonne from the Moors, and after a further six years the last Moors were driven out of all of modern France.
In 778, Charles the Great (also known as Charlemagne, Charles Martel's grandson), undertook a campaign in Northern Spain which recaptured much of the territory north of the Ebo river.
THE RECONQUEST
During the period of Muslim occupation of Spain, a few regions managed to hold out against the Arabs even at their height. In this way Barcelona was never occupied by the Arabs, as were some northern regions.
These regions banded together in a broad anti-Muslim alliance, and began pushing south, slowly but surely driving the Muslims back. This was a painfully slow process and lasted many hundreds of years
ISABELLA AND FERDINAND - VANQUISHED THE MOORS
The reconquest of Spain had however only been carried on in fits and starts. In a great battle fought on the plains of Toledo in July 1212, the Islamists were defeated by a great European army, and the Moors were then restricted to the southern parts of Spain. The north was given time to recuperate and rebuild its strength.
It was only with the rise of two great leaders - the red-haired Isabella I (1451-1504), Queen of Castile, and Ferdinand V, King of Aragon, that the Moors were finally driven from Europe. Castile was one of the territories never occupied by the Moors, and Aragon had been liberated in one of the localized wars between the Visigoths and the Moors.
Isabella, who won renown for not only liberating Spain from the last of the Moors, but for being one of the main sponsors of the voyages of discoveries of Christopher Columbus, was the product of a marriage between Spanish and Portuguese nobility. In 1469, Isabella married Ferdinand - due to intertwining royal family connections and personal conquest, he was not only King of Aragon, but also was king of Sicily (1468-1516); and king of Naples (1504-1516). |
