Reply to 23. David S:
“Without Islamic culture, the inventions noted by Obama may never have reached the West. Although China and Greece contributed some underlying knowledge, without Islamic centers of learning, the West would have lost all of these inventions to the dark ages. Islam made the Renaissance possible. Technicalities aside, Obama’s speech pointed out the basic truth that without Islam, the West would be vastly different, and intellectually impoverished.”
What caused the Dark Ages? It was the conquests of the Arabs (Muslims) which destroyed so much of the classical world. Since they conquered Greek areas, it is no wonder that some lovers of learning translated Greek classics into Arabic – which would have been unnecessary had the Arabs not conquered Greek areas. When the Turks (Muslims) conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Greek scholars fled with their manuscripts to Italy.
