Why Battle of Tours is Historical?

About Arabs we must remember that in about 100 years from the passing away of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the Arab Empire spread from the south of France and Spain right across northern Africa to Suez, and across Arabia and Persia and Central Asia to the borders of Mongolia. India was out of it except for Sindh. Europe was being attacked by the Arabs from two sides—directly at Constantinople, and in France, via Africa.

The Arabs in the south of France were small in numbers and they were very far from their homeland. Thus they could not get much help from Arabia, which was busy then conquering Central Asia. But still these Arabs in France frightened the people of western Europe, and a great coalition was formed to fight them. Charles Martel was the leader of this coalition and in 732 A.C. he defeated them at the battle of Tours in France. This defeat saved Europe from the Arabs.

“On the plains of Tours,” a historian has said, ” the Arabs lost the empire of the world when almost in their grasp.” There can be no doubt that if the Arabs had won at Tours, European history would have been tremendously changed. There was no one else to stop them in Europe and they could have marched right across to Constantinople and put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire and the other States on the way. Instead of Christianity, Islam would then have become the religion of Europe, and all manner of other changes might have taken place. But this is just a flight of imagination. As it happened, the Arabs were stopped in France. For many hundreds of years afterwards, however, they remained and ruled in Spain.