[xcamel]

I tend to believe they all stole from each other, including the first Egyptian and Nubian kingdoms, and some others.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Almost all cultures "stole" technology from other, more advanced cultures. Almost all the cultures of Eurasia and northern and eastern Africa have interlinked technological progress. This is partially why Amerindian advances are rather impressive, although a lot of their stuff was way less advanced than in cultures in the Old World. They did not have the huge pool of Old World civilizations to draw from (any contact with the three Old World continents was probably very, very limited, if it existed), and, from the Macroevolutionary view mainly, but even from the Creationist model, the Americas were not settled as long as the Old World.

[Quick or Dead]

Most all civilizations have some history of technological theft, however few are lauded as Islam for "civilizing" the "mean, ignorant Europeans" and then, at least to Orientalists, inexplicably hitting a brick wall in which all of the learning stopped. Truth of the matter is, they ran out of conquerable nations.

Sorry, I was in a posting rush. Not all Muslims are Arabs.