Despite some strands in Islam that touted dropping all written knowledge other than the Quran and a few other religious works, Islamic academia is widely credited for keeping the knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophy alive during a period of history when European culture had mostly lost touch with these ideas. Given access to fundamental thinkers like Aristotle, Islamic thinkers as well as Jewish thinkers in Islamic communities were able to make major contributions to logic, mathematics, medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_sina) and philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_science). Many English technical words, such as algebra, algorithm and alcohol, are derived from Arabic terms coined by medieval Islamic thinkers (www.etymonline.com) The influence on European thought was profound. It could even be argued that Protestantism is Christianity informed by the Sunni ideal of each person standing alone before God, without intermediaries such as priests and saints. The breakaway of Protestantism from Catholicism, then, may indirectly be an outgrowth of the Islamic library movement.
Avicenna, Wikipedia, viewed 4 november 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_sina
Islam and science, Wikipedia, viewed 4 november 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_science
Harper, D 2011, Online Etymology Dictionary, viewed 4 november 2011 www.etymonline.com
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