Everytime I see a documentary from a Western country about Islam, they feel the need to recall the audience that Western civilization owe their numerals, medicine and science to Islam. This is for the least misleading.
I feel that the people who made those documentaries (even from the BBC) are all but partial. First of all, they confuse Islam with Arabic nations. When they talk about the great, culturally advanced Islamic emirate of Andalucia in Spain, they usually forget that not all people were Muslim (or Arab for that matter), but there were also many Christians and Jews. From the Islamic expansion of the 8th century to this day, there has always been Christians and at least until the creation of modern Israel, also Jews, in most Middle Eastern countries. The percentage of both has been decreasing steadily since the 8th century, but countries like Syria, Lebanon and Egypt still have a notable Christian minority.
My first point is that the "great" Islamic cultures may not have been so great without their religious diversity and tolerance.
Secondly, what they call "Arabic numerals" actually come from India. Gun-powder, often also attributed to the Muslims, originated in China. The Muslims, be them Arab or Turk, have just improved a bit what they obtained from further east, and Europeans were the first to really develop functional guns, and develop their own numeral (it is obvious that the number used by the Arabs now have little resemblance to the Western ones).
As for re-transmitting the knowledge of sciences and philosophy of the Ancient Greeks (esp. Aristotle), it may not have been necessary had the Muslim not invaded the Eastern Roman Empire (=Byzantine Empire). It's a bit too eays to say we owe it to them, that thanks to their ability to preserve this knowledge, Europe was able to get out of the dark ages and start its Renaissance. The way I see it is that if they hadn't taken over most of the Middle East with its great ancient libraries, the knowledge would have stayed with the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, and would have flowed back to Wesern Europe from there.
We can maybe attribute a few advances in medicine to the (mostly European) Andalucians, but not to the whole of Islam. In any case, these advances were not more significant that those made in India, or during the Renaissance in Europe.
So what does the West owe to Islam ? I wonder...
I feel that the people who made those documentaries (even from the BBC) are all but partial. First of all, they confuse Islam with Arabic nations. When they talk about the great, culturally advanced Islamic emirate of Andalucia in Spain, they usually forget that not all people were Muslim (or Arab for that matter), but there were also many Christians and Jews. From the Islamic expansion of the 8th century to this day, there has always been Christians and at least until the creation of modern Israel, also Jews, in most Middle Eastern countries. The percentage of both has been decreasing steadily since the 8th century, but countries like Syria, Lebanon and Egypt still have a notable Christian minority.
My first point is that the "great" Islamic cultures may not have been so great without their religious diversity and tolerance.
Secondly, what they call "Arabic numerals" actually come from India. Gun-powder, often also attributed to the Muslims, originated in China. The Muslims, be them Arab or Turk, have just improved a bit what they obtained from further east, and Europeans were the first to really develop functional guns, and develop their own numeral (it is obvious that the number used by the Arabs now have little resemblance to the Western ones).
As for re-transmitting the knowledge of sciences and philosophy of the Ancient Greeks (esp. Aristotle), it may not have been necessary had the Muslim not invaded the Eastern Roman Empire (=Byzantine Empire). It's a bit too eays to say we owe it to them, that thanks to their ability to preserve this knowledge, Europe was able to get out of the dark ages and start its Renaissance. The way I see it is that if they hadn't taken over most of the Middle East with its great ancient libraries, the knowledge would have stayed with the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, and would have flowed back to Wesern Europe from there.
We can maybe attribute a few advances in medicine to the (mostly European) Andalucians, but not to the whole of Islam. In any case, these advances were not more significant that those made in India, or during the Renaissance in Europe.
So what does the West owe to Islam ? I wonder...