<P> "After Mohammad's death in 632, a series of caliphs (successors) waged energetic jihad against neighboring people's . Palestine, Syria, Persia, and Egypt--once the most heavily Christian areas in the world--quickly succumbed . By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain and were moving into France . In 732, at the Battle of Tours, Charles Martel defeated Muslim invaders and sent them back into Spain . By the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks had conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul . The holdings of the old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, were reduced to little more than Greece . In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East ." This was the first crusade, but the "Colossus of the Medieval world was Islam, not Christendom" and despite initial success, the conflicts, which lasted four centuries, ultimately ended in a failure to retake the "Holy Land" and only barely prevented the taking of the European continent . </P> <P> Historian Jonathan Riley - Smith says scholars are turning away from the idea subsequent crusades were materially motivated . A more complex picture of nobles and knights making sacrifices has emerged creating an increased interest in the religious and social ideas of the laity . Crusading can no longer be defined solely as warfare against Muslims; the crusades were religious wars and the crusaders moved by ideas; and the issue of colonialism is no longer one considered worthy of serious discussion . </P> <P> "The philosophical foundation of the liberal concept of human rights can be found in natural law theories," and much thinking on natural law is traced to the thought of the Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas . According to Aquinas, every law is ultimately derived from what he calls the' eternal law': God's ordering of all created things . For Aquinas, a human action is good or bad depending on whether it conforms to reason, and it is this participation in the' eternal law' by the' rational creature' that is called "natural law ." Aquinas said natural law is a fundamental principle that is woven into the fabric of human nature . Secularists such as Hugo Grotius later expanded the idea of human rights and built on it . Aquinas continues to influence the works of leading political and legal philosophers . </P> <P> "...one cannot and need not deny that Human Rights are of Western Origin . It cannot be denied, because they are morally based on the Judeo - Christian tradition and Graeco - Roman philosophy; they were codified in the West over many centuries, they have secured an established position in the national declarations of western democracies, and they have been enshrined in the constitutions of those democracies ." Howard Tumber says, "human rights is not a universal doctrine, but is the descendent of one particular religion (Christianity)." This does not suggest Christianity has been superior in its practice or has not had "its share of human rights abuses". </P>

How did early christianity influence the development of the roman world