"Actually it was Islam in Spain that preserved what would later become christian technology and intellectualism after ancient Rome fell. Not only did it preserve historical information but invented and created new technology and science. Keep in mind this was the time when Christian Europe suffered under the Dark Ages and had lost all of that Roman intellectual knowledge and capability. Later, Christian pre-Renaissance scholars went to university in places like Toledo and Catalina in Spain and took back what they learned to Northern and Western Europe. This kicked off the Renaissance. Without the Renaissance there would have been no imperialism, exploration and mapping of the unknown world and establishment of the colonies. Christian Europe owes a huge debt to the Universities and sophisticated societies of the Islamic Empire for its existence up until the fall of the Empire (a huge part is due to the Mongol invasion and destruction of Baghdad; the intellectual and cultural capital of that empire). Baghdad had once been an oasis with forests of palms and water gardens. It never really recovered from that destruction. Many historians believe that it was this destruction that not only caused the empire to fall but for Islamic culture to curl inward and swing from intellectual, sophisticated and open to swing in the direction of hostile toward outsiders, conservative politically, and religious fundamentalist. Just think how different the world may have been if the Mongols had not sacked the Eastern half of the empire. Hmmmm."
http://news.yahoo.com/video/school-history-assignment-causes-controversy-131031588.html
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