- Cairo: Founded in 10th century during the Golden Age of Islam, Cairo was also one of the main hubs of arts and science during the Muslim reign in southern Europe. Libraries and institutes were installed in number but Cairo’s Al Azhar university stands out at one as one of the biggest establishments of Muslim era. It is also one of the oldest universities of the world.
- Although, Muslim contributions are mentioned meagerly. Some authors stick to portraying their importance heavily on the renaissance. Some excerpts are given below:
- “We have underestimated the importance of 800 years of Islamic society and culture in Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. The contribution of Muslim Spain to the preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and to the first flowerings of the Renaissance, has long been recognized. But Islamic Spain was much more than a mere larder where Hellenistic knowledge was kept for later consumption by the emerging modern Western world. Not only did Muslim Spain gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman civilization, it also interpreted and expanded upon that civilisation, and made a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of human endeavor – in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic word), law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture, theology, music. Averroes and Avenzoor, like their counterparts Avicenna and Rhazes in the East, contributed to the study and practice of medicine in ways from which Europe benefited for centuries afterwards.
- Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for learning. In the words of the tradition, ‘the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr’. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilized city of Europe. We know of lending libraries in Spain at the time King Alfred was making terrible blunders with the culinary arts in this country. It is said that the 400,000 volumes in its ruler’s library amounted to more books than all the libraries of the rest of Europe put together. That was made possible because the Muslim world acquired from China the skill of making paper more than 400 years before the rest of non-Muslim Europe. Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion, various types of medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities.
- Medieval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing Jews and Christians the right to practice their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West. The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to which Islam has been a part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans, and the extent to which it has contributed so much towards the civilization which we all too often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavor. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart.”
His Royal Highness, Prince Of Wales ‘Islam and the West’
No wonder you lot are retarded. Muslim this and muslim that.
Wake up moron. It was contributions of people. Religion had nothing to do with the Renaissance. Nowhere does it mention that it was a “Christian” renaissance.
And regarding “Arabic” Numerals and Zero…. you do know that it was developed in India and not in your precious Arabia.
The sooner you realise that “muslim” history is just an ego hog wash of trying to get an ego boost – the better it will be for Pakistan.
The great Islamic achievements can never be excluded despite the attempts of bruised egos of the European Renaissance and British India.
From where I stand there is but one Moran, frequently visiting these boards and he is neither European, nor American and neither Pakistan.
He is but from the land who discard actual history in favour of jumbo jumbo folklore and absurdities of legend. For these people to learn from history will be a damning insight into their actual past and how thankful they must bel the innovations that they received from their north and immediate West post British Empire.
These dhotiwala’s can not come away from imprisoning over 80% of their fellow indigenous under their pitiful history of caste system how can you spew garbage at others.
Truly pitiful people with zero contribution and impact on the world will always shy from actual recorded history to learn from it as they themselves have a non existent history that hurts their inflated egos,