Question

Which of the following was one of drivers of European exploration in the 1400s and 1500s?

A. Europeans were driven out of Europe by aggressive Muslim empires.

    B.  Europeans sought new trade routes to eastern Asia.     C.  Europeans were in a race against African countries to colonize the world.

Answer 1

Europeans sought new trade routes to eastern Asia.

Muslims had something to do with it, but not in any aggressive conquest of Europe. The Ottoman Empire began to gain power in the Middle East, and land routes to Asia needed to go through Ottoman or other Muslim territory. This was sometimes contentious, and at other times simply costly because Muslim merchants and governments wanted to profit from trade through the region also.