In his enduring tome The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote that the clash between Muslim and Catholic armies on a dusty road 200 miles south of France in a.d. 732 was “an encounter which would change the history of the whole world.”
If the outcome of the battle of Tours-Poitiers was different, Gibbon wrote, perhaps “the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed.” In other words, were it not for the Catholic army of Frankish General Charles Martel—aka “Charles the Hammer”—Europe might now be a Muslim continent.
