Quote:
Originally Posted by GleichKnallts
the famous euro- and us-centristic world fiew. 
the problem of islamic fundamentalists (what you now call extremists) goes back - in my fiew - to european imperialism of the 18th, 19th and 20th century. The important islamic countries were rather modern and science orientated up to a point - many of the western basics in medizine, mathematics, construction and so on are based on achievements made by those countries. |
Actually, that's only partially correct. The greatest advances in the Middle East were done by Pagans from Mesopotamia, Phonecia, and ancient Egypt. By the time Islam was introduced to the Middle East and the Islamic Golden Age began, it was a result of Baghdad becoming an intellectual meeting point for civilizations abroad.
Now a lot of Muslims will tell you their people were largely responsible for the jump in discovery and technology at Baghdad. This is not true, Islam made its contribution, but you had people from Italy, Byzantium, China, even Vikings that came to add a piece of their culture and technology.
The Islamic world may have served as a type of meeting point for practitioners of science all around, but it did NOT lead the way on its own.
And on a side note, it was the Mongol Empire, a force from the EAST, not west, that sacked Baghdad and burned its libraries of precious information. They hurt your world a lot more than the west ever did.
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