venatorvenator wrote:Eemerald wrote:actually, it wasn't.
They played an important role providing the conditions for the Italian Renaissance. The top handbook of medicine used for centuries in Europe was a middle-eastern work, and islamic, of all things. There are texts of Aristotle which had to be translated from Arabic into Greek because we had destroyed their originals over here. If they were shitty nations, we were much worse.
After the fall of the roman empire, Europe slowly sunk into the middle age. And stayed, far away from knowledge until the renaissance (not entirely true but let's simplify).
During that time, Islam had a gloden age. From AD 800 to 1000. And it went to hell, slowly after that. It has, I'm afraid, nothing to do with outside intervention. The question is, why it went to become a shithole around AD 1100. Here's a hint : religion. No need to blame westerner on this one :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZCuF733p88
All of a sudden they banned mathematics, in the name of islam... they never recovered.