Abstract
Christians and Muslims have always kept an ambiguous relationship going. Thanks to the Mediterranean, there have always been lots of contacts between the Christians and the Muslims. However, these contacts were strengthened with the Crusades during the Middle Ages. After the Crusades were over, various trade routes opened up between the Eastern and the Western cities. In this essay, I will show to what extent the West benefited from the contacts with the Islamic world, and how these contacts helped the Christians to outdo the Muslims, economically speaking. I will first emphasize the two-fold relationship between the Muslims and the Christians, that is to say both fascination and rejection. Then, I will show the supremacy of the Muslims over the Christians for the most part of the Middle-Ages. Finally, I will analyse the shift in power to the West, toward the end of the Middle-Ages.
