Introduction: A Thousand Years of Amnesia

Abstract

Islam in Europe is often considered a relatively recent phenomenon. Political discourse in many European countries presents Islam as a foreign presence in Europe that is incompatible with societal values and a threat to people’s way of life. Yet, far from being incompatible, the West and the Muslim world have a shared heritage that represents something positive upon which to build. The presence of Islam in Europe has far more profound roots than is commonly imagined, not simply because the Arab-Islamic Empire at one time included Spain, southern Italy, Sicily and the Balkans, but also due to the transmission of knowledge and techniques to non-Muslim areas of Europe from the Arab-Islamic Empire. While early Arab and Berber invaders did not initially belong to an obviously higher culture, they were not organized on a tribal basis and their capacity to embrace the contributions and advances in knowledge of Ancient Greece, China and India meant that the impact of the Arab-Islamic Empire on Europe had a very special character, and an important part to play in the rise of Europe.¹ While the Islamic geo-cultural domain comprised a number of ethnic and religious communities, I employ the term Arab-Islamic Empire, because Arab culture provided the cultural framework of the Empire and Arabic the backbone of intellectual endeavour, and Arabs also provided for the most of the political leadership during the golden age of the Empire.