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To: Tucker39

Arabic numerals (and the concept of zero) were derived from a system invented by Hindus in India. Muslims did capture, translate, preserve, and carry back to Europe for retranslation from Arabic quite a lot of classical writings that were otherwise lost after the fall of the western Roman Empire. But besides some unique architectural styles and decorative arts they have invented almost nothing.


11 posted on 11/21/2016 6:51:57 AM PST by katana
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To: katana

Medievsl “Islamic” civilization was without doubt in many aspects by very advanced. Quotation marks because Islam itself had itself little to do with this. Arabs as an etnic/racial group invented very little.

(Forcibly islamized) medieval Persians contributed massively to science, thought and arts.
Famously Avicenna, al-Razi, al-Tusi, Farabi to name a few.

Witout Islam and the resulting disruptions these advances would have been made under a Zoroastrian, Christian or Manichean label.

Arabic as Islamic lingua franca however certainly helped the spread of knowledge.

But in the end the destruction of ancient Byzantine and Persian libraries by the Arab muslim invaders destroyed a great part of ancirnt knowledge. That is directly on the account of islam.


15 posted on 11/21/2016 7:17:16 AM PST by SolidWood
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To: katana

Some texts reached Western Europe first in the form of translations from Arabic to Latin, but I can’t think of any ancient Greek texts known only from medieval Arabic translations. If there are any it’s only a minute proportion of what has been preserved. The Arabs were interested in certain genres only, not in Greek literature generally.


23 posted on 11/21/2016 8:52:38 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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