During the European Dark Ages, between the 7th and 14th century AD, the Moorish Empire in Spain became one of the world's finest civilizations. General Tarik and his Black Moorish army from North-west Africa conquered Spain after a week long battle with King Roderick. Starting in April of 711 AD, the conquest of the whole of the Iberian peninsula took 7 years afterward. The word tariff and the Rock of Gibraltar were named after Jabal Tarikh. They found that Europe, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, had returned almost to complete barbarism and blood letting. The population was 90% illiterate and had lost all of the civilizing principles that were passed on by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Moors reintroduced mathematics, medicine, agriculture, and the physical sciences. The clumsy Roman numerals were replaced by Hindu Arabic figures including the zero and the decimal point. As Dr. Van Sertima says, "You can't do higher mathematics with Roman numerals." The Moors introduced agriculture to Europe including cotton, rice, sugar cane, dates, ginger, lemons, and strawberries. They also taught Europe how to store grain for up to 100 years and built underground grain silos. They established a world-famous silk industry in Spain.
The Moorish achievement in hydraulic engineering was outstanding. They constructed an aqueduct, that conveyed water from the mountains to the city through lead pipes, from the mountains to the city. They taught Europe how to mine for minerals on a large scale, including copper, gold, silver, tin, lead, and aluminum. Spain soon became the world center for high quality sword blades and shields. Only Byzantine rivaled Moorish Spain in beauty. Spain was eventually manufacturing up to 12,000 blades and shields per year. Spanish craft and woolen became world famous.
The Moorish craftsman also produced world class glass, pottery, vases, mosaics, and jewelry. The Moors introduced to Europe, paved, lighted streets with raised sidewalks for pedestrians. Education was made compulsory, before then, during Greek and Kemet era, education was only for a specified few. The university of Salamanca was built and taught in by African scholars, Arabs and a few habiru(Hebrew speaking groups). Soap was reintroduced into Europe by the Moors; Europe had stopped bathing long after the fall of Rome in the 5th century CE. This had resulted in several plagues that almost decimated the population of Europe, among other factors like constant bloodletting in the name of religion.
