In 1258, after the Siege of Baghdad by the mongols, the golden age of Islam ended. Scholars were killed, buildings were sacked, infrastructure was destroyed. Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) survived temporarily.
In Spain, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia was objectively the most advanced in all of Europe. After Al-Andalus was lost to Europeans, the Latin translations of the 12th century occurred.
Those Latin translations, which were carried out in great part by the Toledo School of Translators, were then used by European scholars to establish the next generation of education: the founders of Oxford, Copernicus, etc. would not exist as we know them if it wasn't for such translations.
They did a great job in passing the torch of knowledge to the West. Then, during the Crusades, there was no intention with sympathizing with them, and their contributions to our culture started being erased from history.
Lately there has been a little bit of more justice in the way history is presented, but there is work to do. The translations of the 12th century were necessary for the Renaissance to occur.
Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.
>Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of overstating Islamic contributions to Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.
More accurate.
Ironically enough, this born out of a very Western European point of view. While progress had slowed in the West during the Middle Ages, it was continuing on in the Byzantine Empire.
In the past, the Byzantines were not Christian enough to receive credit for their contributions by likes of Edward Gibbon, now it seems to have swung the other way and they are too Christian for contemporaries to go out of their way to praise.
Students of his students include: Copernicus, Leibniz, many of the Bernoullis, Euler, Lagrange, Fourier, Poisson, Dirichlet.. and the list goes on and on...
They did. They preserved authorship in all their works.
Their additions were in the form of footnotes, comments and original works.
They translated works of Ptolomy, Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, Galen for us.
They also produced very important works in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, etc.
I challenge you to find translators for those languages in Medieval Europe when literacy rate was less than 1%. Their contributions were objectively important and critical.
>I challenge you to find translators for those languages in Medieval Europe
This is the Western European point of view I referenced in my other comment. These works were also being preserved in Latin and Greek in Constantinople for the entire duration of the Middle Ages in Western Europe and the rise and fall of the Golden Islamic Age.
In Spain, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia was objectively the most advanced in all of Europe. After Al-Andalus was lost to Europeans, the Latin translations of the 12th century occurred.
Those Latin translations, which were carried out in great part by the Toledo School of Translators, were then used by European scholars to establish the next generation of education: the founders of Oxford, Copernicus, etc. would not exist as we know them if it wasn't for such translations.
They did a great job in passing the torch of knowledge to the West. Then, during the Crusades, there was no intention with sympathizing with them, and their contributions to our culture started being erased from history.
Lately there has been a little bit of more justice in the way history is presented, but there is work to do. The translations of the 12th century were necessary for the Renaissance to occur.