was it only in spain, how far did they get in Europe?
I very dimly recall something about them almost reaching Vienna, but European history isn’t my strong point.
At the heightof the Caliphate period. The Ottoman Empire was rather more successful in the east, in a much later era.
BTW, the Reconquista was the retaking of Spain, not the Moorish conquest.
true, how far did the moors get then in Europe, was it only in the iberian pennisula…
A good map, but it stops at 750 so misses a couple of little areas. Sicily starting in 827 ( not complete until the mid-10th century ), Corsica de facto for a few decades around the same time, Crete also in the same period ( 9th-10th centuries ). There were also other little islands of Muslim control like Fraxinet in Provence, or Bari and Minturno in southern Italy.
Note the Ottoman map also doesn’t show the conquest of Crete which took place in 1669.
Im just wondering why did the “Age of Discovery” happen right after the fall of grenada in 1492 marking the end of the “reconquista”
why didn’t the Caliphate, Muslims launch their own Age of Discovery, exploration?
They weren’t under the same pressure. Castilian and Portuguese adventurism was prompted in part by being completely shut out of the eastern Mediterranean ( and hence Asian ) trade by Venice and its Muslim partners. Unable to participate in Red Sea or overland trade routes to Asia, they tried end runs - Portugal around Africa ( successful ), Castile listened to some nut and tried to cross the Atlantic and reach Asia through the backdoor ( unsuccessful, but with a surprise consolation prize ).
The various Caliphs, whether in Medina, Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba, Mahdia, Constantinople or Cairo, were not faced with that particular problem. No reason to go around Africa for African resources when trans-Saharan caravans were efficient enough. No reason to go around Africa for Asian trade if you’re next door to India anyway or had access through the Red Sea or Persian Gulf. No reason to go across the Atlantic, because why?
well because didn’t the age of discovery lead to Spain being the most powerful empire the world has ever seen until the British took over in the early 19th cnetury
Well, yes and no. The most powerful empire the world had ever seen up to that point was more likely the Mongols IMHO, but it is certainly debatable. But at any rate the Spanish empire faded long before the 19th century ( by the mid-17th, if not earlier really ) and its influence and power derived as much from Habsburg inheritance in Europe as its New World conquests ( though that massive pile of silver in Potosi did prop them up for a good long time, while simultaneously gutting their economy ).
But Iberian Muslim rulers were not seers and couldn’t foresee that pouring a lot of scarce resources into a desperate bid to cross the “empty” Atlantic for no particular reason might have scored them a massive continent-spanning empire. Maybe. If they had such prognostication abilities maybe they would have taken the shot, but they didn’t ( if I were them and knew the future I would have first concentrated on doing everything I could to snuff out dinky little Asturias and nipping that pesky Reconquista thing out in the bud ). And otherwise they had no compelling reason to do so.
For the most part. There were incursions into France that were stopped by Charles Martel. In fact, his defense of France against the Umayyads earned him the nickname “Martel” … in English “The Hammer”.
true…so the top 3 most powerful empires at there extend would be
- British
- Mongol
- Spain
There’s the obvious point that nobody in the 15th century knew this was going to happen. Even Spain and Portugal. They didn’t plan on discovering new continents - their goal was to find routes to East Asia that bypassed Muslim countries. The Muslim countries had no similar motivation - they could travel to East Asia directly.
The Muslims conquered Spain but they also crossed the Pyrenees and raided into what is now France. The biggest raid was defeated at the Battle of Tours in 729. This wasn’t an attempt at conquest but it’s likely if the Muslims had won the battle, they would have come back with the intent of conquering France.
why did it profit the spanish and portugese more so then the muslims then?
beeeecause the muslims weren’t the ones conquering America? The people who benefitted most from conquering America were those who did 
Or are you trying to ask why did the Muslims don’t see any benefit in looking for alternate routes to the ones they already had? Or do you think that some 8 centuries of having pretty-much-exclusive rights to the Silk Road count as “no benefit”?
yeah this is more what im getting at… so neither the portugese, spanish or muslims didn’t think there was going to be the massive wealth in the americas (gold and silver)
as we all know Muslim civilization was technologically more advanced then European civilization until about the 1600s when Europe started to be more advanced then the Muslims
so around the time, Muslims had the technology, they just didnt have any motivation to go “discovering?”
would you guys agree that it was about the 17th century when European technology and science started to get ahead of India, Chinese, and Arabic science/tech
Right. As already explained by tamerlane and Little Nemo.
The ENTIRE motivation for Spanish and Portuguese exploration in the 15th century was finding a new route to India and China. They wanted to find a new route because the existing routes were controlled by the Muslims.
The Portuguese spent decades systematically probing further and further down the coast of Africa trying to find a way around. The Spanish gambled on the crazy long shot of trying to cross the ocean to the west. Both stumbled onto the New World completely by accident. (The Portuguese discovered Brazil because the fastest way to get around Africa involved swinging way out into the Atlantic to catch the dominant winds.)
Neither the Spanish nor the Portuguese were exploring with the intent of finding new lands to conquer. They just wanted to find a way for their merchants to get a slice of the spice/silk trade.
I think the fact that they didn’t know the Americas existed pre-dated any lack of comprehension as to the mineral wealth to be had.
A highly contentious claim. I don’t think you can draw a bright line like that and if you could it would have come much earlier in the Early and maybe High Middle Ages.
Keep in mind that technology is a continuum and builds on earlier accomplishments. Even if you accept a meme of “superior Muslim technology” in say, the 10th century, that does not mean that 10th century Muslim states had 16th century naval technology handy. It just means they might have been a bit more sophisticated relative to their 10th century contemporaries in Christian Europe.
In point of fact deep sea technology was ultimately more advanced in Christian Europe than the ME/NA because of the different pressures on European bulk shipping in the Atlantic. In the rather shallow Mediterranean, where land was usually nearby, galleys generally sufficed. On the Indian Ocean, where the Monsoon currents were ridiculously regular, easily stitched together ( and thus often rather fragile structurally ) dhows did just fine. The much more extreme conditions of the Atlantic prompted advances in navigation and deep-hulled sailing ships were needed to weather the conditions. But these were gradual developments and not something that could have been pulled off so easily a few centuries earlier - the Muslim states certainly did not have access to such technologies, they hadn’t needed to develop them.
The Chinese in the 15th century were a somewhat different story, but there it was court politics that brought their little spate of adventurism to an end.