Abstract
West of the Persian Gulf, the history of urbanization was dominated by a northwestward trend going from Mesopotamia to Phoenicia, Greece, and Italy. That wave stopped at the northern limit of Brittany, and it was followed by a Big Ebb characterized by a southeastern movement associated with the fall of Rome, the rise of Islam, the emergence of the Baghdad urbexplosion, and the progression of Islam up to China and Indonesia within the Great and the Asian corridors. The expansion of Islam was first dominated by the Arabs, second by local dynasties, third by Turko-Mongol invaders, and, finally, by peaceful merchants. During that long period, the Western world was supplanted by the Moslem one.
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Notes
- 1.
Bairoch (1988, p. 107).
- 2.
Hohenberg and Lees (1985, p. 62).
- 3.
Keys (2000) considers that the turning point in that period may have been an eruption of the Krakatoa Volcano (Indonesia) occurred in AD 535. That eruption could have been at the origin of a marked cooling of the climate on earth, especially in Europe, which could have favored the development of plague epidemics that killed several millions of people in the Mediterranean Basin. Keys goes on suggesting that those climatic changes could have been responsible for the decay of the Ma’rib Dam, which allowed Yemen to dominate the Arabic peninsula, and that the weakening of Yemen favored the rise of Medina, Mecca, and Islam, which came to dominate the Great Ebb.
- 4.
Maddison (2001, p. 260).
- 5.
Mollat du Jourdin and Desanges (1988, p. 105).
- 6.
Ibid., 111–112.
- 7.
Morris (1994, p. 26).
- 8.
Ibid., p. 16.
- 9.
Bairoch, op. cit., 375–377 and 11–12.
- 10.
See the classic about Islamic cities: Hakim (1986).
- 11.
The Visigoth forces were routed by the Arabs in 711. Córdoba and Malaga fell in 711, Sevilla in 712, and Valencia, Gerona, Zaragoza and Lugo in 714. Barcino (Barcelona) fell in 713, but was regained by the Christians in 801.
- 12.
The Roman Corduba had been the capital of the Baetia Province. Under the Visigoths, it became Kordhoba, and the religious center of the Christian Visigoth Kingdom.
- 13.
- 14.
Ibid., 19.
- 15.
Ibid., 21, 115, and Lugan (1997).
- 16.
Diamond (1997, 392–401), Lugan, Ibid., 42–45.
- 17.
Bernard Lugan, op. cit., 41.
- 18.
Ibid., 47.
- 19.
Ibid., 45.
- 20.
Summers (1963).
- 21.
Samarkand’s ancient history dates from before its first recorded mention in 329 BC when, known as Maracanda, it was captured by Alexander the Great.
- 22.
Maddison (1998, pp. 20, 28).
- 23.
In the Lesser Vehicle tradition, salvation (nirvana) can only be achieved through becoming a monk, while, in the Greater Vehicle Buddhism that prevails in China, it can be reached by everyone.
- 24.
The first act of state-directed imperialism of modern European history may be the Portuguese marine attack of 1415 upon the fortified Moslem city of Ceuta (north of Morocco). That being said, European imperialism really developed after the discovery of America.
- 25.
de Mestier du Bourg (1970).
- 26.
Before Marco Polo, the Italian Franciscan Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (1182–1253) was sent by Pope Innocent IV to meet the Great Khan, and the Flemish Franciscan Guillaume de Rubroek (1220–1293) was sent by St. Louis, king of France, to Mongolia to meet the Great Khan in 1254.
- 27.
Angus Maddison, op. cit., 41.
- 28.
Ibid., 69.
- 29.
Ibid., 267.
- 30.
Bairoch, op. cit., 45–46.
- 31.
Maddison, op. cit., 256.
- 32.
See Rozman (1990, pp. 63–66).
- 33.
Diamond, op. cit., 257–258.
- 34.
Maddison, op. cit., 257.
- 35.
See, among others, Maddison (2001).
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Tellier, LN. (2019). The Great Ebb: Islam Out to Conquer the Great and the Asian Corridors. In: Urban World History. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24842-0_6
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