What would the world look like if there hadn't been the Crusades?

Question

We can argue about the reason for the Crusades.. I would say it was a European/Christian response to Islamic expansionism but to argue this point is not my point. My question is what would the world look like today if the Crusades had not happened? Would we had had renaissance? What would culture look like? What would government look like. I don't have the answers either obviously but historic events drastically effect the outcome of the future and so what effect do you think the Crusades had on the development of the world and more specifically western civilization?

Answer 1

just like it does today.

the crusades had no impact on anything whatever.

Answer 2

It is possible that the exposure of medieval Europe to the fragments of classical knowledge possessed by the Caliphate, and to the middle-eastern trade-routes to the orient formed a foundation for the renaisance.

It's also possible that cause-and-effect is exagerated. Trade and contact between neighboring cultures would still seem likely, even in the absence of religiously motivated warfare.

In any case, there were several Crusades, and the forces behind them would have been unlikely to find an alternate outlet, so something /else/ would have to have been different for there to be no Cursades, making it a very open-ended question. That is, there might be many plausible alternate histories that could be spun from such a premise.

Answer 3

We would all be bowing 5 times a day to Mecca. And there would be little or no culture. And of course the Final Solution would have been a Muslim one not German.

Answer 4

No topless bathing on the French Riviera! No booze or wine. No bacon in BLTs. No need for women to wear sunblock. No need for men to shave. And women without clits. Thank God for the Crusades. We need another one now!

Answer 5

Europe would have never come out of the dark ages and the world would be ruled under Islamic law.

Answer 6

We wouldn't have Monty Python and the Holy Grail to watch. Thank God we had those pesky crusades.

Answer 7

more innocent people would have had children Muslims and Christians alike, not to mention the Christian place that was sacked by the Christians on one of the crusades, or the ridiculous amounts of rapes and pillaging done in the name of the Christendom.....

Answer 8

the crusades ended? i dont think so. look at the current war. bottom line... christian right against the "evil islam terrorists"

Answer 9

It is another example of crazy white people taking power that doesn't belong to them. Asians and Muslims will take over the world soon enough anyhow so it doesn't matter.