Before the epidemic, Justinian seemed poised to reunify the empire; it is not too much of a stretch to conclude that Yersinia pestis was primarily responsible for dashing those hopes. The epidemic helped plunge Europe into the Dark Ages and provided a geopolitical vacuum into which the early adherents of Islam, protected from the disease by the desert climate (which is unfriendly to the black rat) and by a lack of large cities, could expand. The plague also aided the Muslims farther east; Procopius recorded its devastation in Persia, suggesting that succeeding waves of the pestilence may have
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