Islam, Medieval Era and the European Dark Ages.

The medieval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic,
was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because
we have tended to see Islam as the enemy, as an alien culture, society, and
system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to
our own history. For example, we have underestimated the importance
of eight hundred 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 then 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
civilization, and made a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of
human endeavour—in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (it self
an Arabic word), law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture,
architecture, theology, music. Averroes [Ibn Rushd] and Avenzoor [Ibn
Zuhr], like their counterparts Avicenna [Ibn Sina] and Rhazes [Abu Bakr
al Razi] in the East, contributed to the study and practice of medicine in
ways from which Europe benefited for centuries afterwards. 5



From John Esposito Edited 500 Influential Muslims (page 14, Section 1:8)