[cripplecreek]

What, then, of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library? Were the Arabs responsible? The evidence indicates overwhelmingly that not only did the Arabs destroy the library or libraries of Alexandria, but they simultaneously put to the torch all secular learning

If true, they set the whole world back possibly a century or more.

[IrishCatholic]

Actually, reading over the posts I disagree with some of the more benign interpretations of Islam.
It was a plague that kick started the Renaissance. Much of those that could escape, did as the darkness spread people brought the ancient world's knowledge with them.
The final choking off of the East corresponded with the West's effort to find a new trade route around Islam to China and India.
When Christopher Columbus sailed West, he was searching for a route to the East that bypassed Islamic controlled territory. If there hadn't been that need, who knows how long it would have been until it became feasible and desirable to search for a Western route? Another hundred years?

[jpsb]

If true, they set the whole world back possibly a century or more.

More like a 800 years. 700AD-1500AD, 800 years. What a waste, once the Egypt and the Middle East were the jewls of western civiliztaion. Now, not so much.

[Cronos]

it’s true. I give you as proof 5 places that were the centres of civilisation but whose importance in the world, culturally, socially, philosophically, economically, in innovation etc. disappeared as the % of Mooselimbs increased = Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Yemen was once a flourishing land with a history dating back to at least 6000 BC, with people smart enough to build a massive dam of earthernworks at Marib that made their desert bloom, where they became rich due to myrrh and frankincense. But now where is Yemen? It’s a cesspit. And it’s been a cesspit since the 7th century when the Christians and Jews were chased out.