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Then.. in 1094.. the Pope.. called.. the faithful.. to drive the Saracen hosts out of the sacred Christian shrine.. Europe lept up at his word and for well-nigh two hundred years.. this.. war.. continued.. The Christians ultimately withdrew in ignominious and complete defeat and Islam remained in possession of all the Holy Places she had owned before (47:4) It was Europe.. and not Arabia which gained from the struggle (of the Crusades), for the Crusades provided yet another channel through which knowledge.. flowed into Europe.. (48:1) Gradually, under this many-pronged impulse from the East (Islam).. the mediaeval Church.. went down in defeat. The Renaissance was truly an expression of the 'joie de vivre' which Europe learned from the Arabs, and.. the awakened Europeans began to build a richer, happier, more eager civilization.. (48:2) Christendom has been slow to realize and to admit the debt which our Western civilization owes to the East. But the facts of our borrowing are written large in history and nothing but prejudice can lead us to minimize our indebtedness (48:3) "Let us examine the two civilizations" wrote Seignobos in his 'Histoire de la Civilisation au Moyen Age, '.. In the west-- miserable little cities, peasants' huts and great fortresses-- a country always troubled by a war, where one could not travel ten leagues without running the risk of being robbed; and in the Orient-- Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad-- with their marble palaces, their workshops, their schools, their bazaars, their villages, and the incessant movement of merchants who travelled in peace from Spain to Persia.. In the eleventh century these two worlds began to become acquainted; the barbarous Christians came into contact with the civilized Musselmans in two ways-- by war and by commerce. And by contact with the orientals, the occidentals became civilized."
(49:1)
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