After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, power was relinquished to many different strongholds throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Trade was growing throughout the world and ready to be conquered. In Western Europe expansion was dominated by the Germanic people, they had entered their own Iron Age and were changing the basis of society in that region. Eastern Europe had already begun its transition from the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire with the penetration of Christianity into all aspects of life. The Arab world was gaining strength and took over the rest of what the Roman Empire left behind after its fall using its new religion to expand, following the evangelical example of the prophet Mohammed. Both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds were defined by their use of a monotheistic religion in governing their empire\'s, a first in Western history.

Islam began in Mecca in 610 AD, but the start of the Muslim era is marked by the prophet Mohammed\'s journey from Mecca to Medina in 622. The new religion quickly spread through the Arabian Peninsula and in the century that followed, Arab armies carried Islam t

Byzantium began with a Hellenistic urban heritage: the Mediterranean and Balkan shores were fringed by Greek cities that became increasingly rural during a period of urban decline after the 6th century AD. From the 7th century Slav and Arab infiltrations transformed market towns into well-defended garrison fortresses, Constantinople being the exception. Strategically, Byzantium was always fighting on two untenable fronts against the Slavs and then the Franks in the west and against the Arabs and then the Seljuk Turks in the east. In its 11th century glory days, the Byzantine Empire stretched from the Adriatic to Antioch and up to the Black Sea and was reachable by ancient highways. Administratively and socially a network of military and clerical strongholds held it together and economically its accessible areas were largely coastal.

The Byzantine Empire, even with its strategic position, was a consumer rather than an exporter; it was not exploited commercially until the advent of western merchants in the 12th century. Byzantine tracks were paired with the extensive and well-maintained road system of the Western Roman Empire therefore there was an absence of wheeled traffic. Goods were carried on the backs of beasts or women, limiting the coast of the Empire as the only economically accessibl

Some topics in this essay:
Byzantine Empire, Arabs Muslim, East Africa, Islamic Empire, Roman Empire, Abbasid Caliphate, Asia China, Islamic Empires, Mediterranean Balkan, Black Sea, roman empire, byzantine empire, east africa, islamic empire, western roman empire, economically accessible, middle east, central asia, abbasid caliphate, western roman, monotheistic religion,