Translations of Arabic works helped spark �the Renaissance but except for some paper, medicine, mathematics and drugs I am not sure what Europeans acquired that was original to the Islamic world.
The loss of the great universities and even the manufacturing sites in Spain also had a lot to do with the decline of Islamic culture. On Thu, 6 May 2004 02:53:17 -0700, Richard Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The Muslims may have contributed many worthwhile things to civilisation > but the invention of zero wasn't one of them. So far as I know, the idea > of "zero" in number systems was independently invented by the > Babylonians, the Mayans and the Indians (before Islam!); the Arabs > learned about zero from India, and then passed the idea on to Europe. > > Rich _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
