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Intellectuals are eternally grateful for Islam's medieval contributions to our Western intellectual culture.  Muslim philosophers introduced the West to the humanist movement, the historical sciences, the inductive scientific method, the founding principles of the Italian Renaissance and, most importantly, the harmony of faith and reason that shocked medieval Europe.

Islam deserves the general credit for the Greco-Arab, Persian, Turkish and related cultural contributions: Islam was their unifying principle. Islam's revolutionary, monotheistic metaphysic and sceptical iconoclasm in conjunction with the cultural environments of conquered lands, was conducive to the development of natural science. And in dialectical resistance to iconoclasm, mysticism and romantic art excelled, particularly in subtle ironic and paradoxical expressions.

The fundamentalist Arabs were confronted by decadent tendencies all around when they arose from the desert to conquer the world for god. Influential Western thinkers have praised the Islamic effort. For example, Immanual Kant:

"Islam distinquishes itself with pride and courage, for it propagates faith not by miracles but by conquests, and it is founded on courageous asceticism. This important phenomenon is due to the founder who propagated the conception of the unity of God. The nobility of a people who were freed from idolatry has been an important factor in bringing about the result. The spirit of Islam is indicated not in conformity without will but in voluntary adherence to the will of God, and this, above all, is a noble quality of a high order." (Immanuel Kant,La Religion dans les limites de la simple raison, translated by J. Gibelin, J. Vrin, Paris, 1943)

Auguste Comte, the founder of modern sociology, in his discussions of the religions of humanity, praised Islam as a religion of the highest order, and acknowledged its scientific contribution: "Arab civilization transmitted Greek science to us; and this will always secure for it an honourable place among the essential elements of the medieval system, regarded as a preparation for Positivism." Furthermore:

"... though the separation of the Church and State was never effected in the East, the Greek clergy were of use in maintaining the intellectual tradition, which in the West was jusfiably postponed to social necessities (Comte is usually very careful not to disparage any people who in death constitute the growing aspect of the 'subjective life after death' of the Great Being which dwarfs the objective life of living beings). In this last phase a revolution burst forth in the East which exercised a profound influence on the whole course of medieval history. I refer to the rise of Mahometism... This revolution was the work of a man who combined in a unique degree high qualities of heart with those of mind and character. Unprecedented, but well-timed, it exhibited, in their fullest light, the two characteristic features of the Middle Age: the aspiration for universality in religion, and the establishment of a new nation. The Monotheism of Mahomet was a new and not inadequate solution of the great problem which pressed as stongly on the East as on the West. With admirable instinct he felt, though obscurely, the inconsistency of the theological principle with the separation of Church and State; an inconsistency manifested by the nullity of the Greek priesthood, and the inadquacy of the Western Church. The alternative was the concentration of the two powers as practiced by Polytheism... He was thus brought back into the direction of Hebrew monotheism, of which he might have been the true Messiah. But his warrior life kept him clear of theocratic tendencies; the simplicity of his doctrine was suited to the life, and was calculated indeed ultimately to lead to entire emancipation. The combination of the two satisfied the aspirations of his followers, to whom dominion had been the goal in view..." (Auguste Comte, System of Positive Polity, London, 1875)

Today, U.S. Marines refer to Arab "terrorists" in battlefields as "cockroaches", but there are occasions when even the most ruthless enemies are admired for their violent virtue notwithstanding the slaughter of innocents purportedly mandated by gods - including the god of the Old Testament. The Arab warrior was once one of the most celebrated romantic figures in Western literature, enjoying equal status with the European knight; bloodcurdling stories were told of the Arab warrior's exploits; tales of the jihads of Muhammad and his commanders were quite popular. Be that as it may, it was difficult for the Arabs to restrain or to reverse the relapses of conquered territories into moral decadence, yet they did their utmost. Hence Arab fundamentalists have been occasionally referred to as the militant "spiritual" force of Islam. On the other hand, some Muslims farther East, especially in the mountainous areas, have called themselves "spiritualists", and have refered to the fundamentalists as "materialists" because of their emphasis on controlling worldly behavior. In sum, Islam was often at war with itself and with others, and, as we can also observe in China's Warring States Period and elsewhere, extended troubled times can be conducive to intellectual development; of course intellectuals struggle for their respective nations; but some who are weary of war struggle to ascertain a universal solution to violent conflicts.

During the recent so-called "third world war on terrorism", Islam has frequently been defamed by persons who consider the violent acts of a few "terrorists" - or "freedom fighters" if you please - as the acts of an entire people, not only those who are living, but all those who are dead and all those who are yet to live. "We" do not like them so "they" are all brutal barbarians, almost subhuman; we deny the high culture of their civilization at large. That sort of error is to be expected. People who bolster love for their own kind with antipathy towards others tend to ignore or discredit the virtues of outsiders, prefering to emphasize their vices instead. Among the ignorant, we discover their objects of scorn serve as scapegoats for the projected viciousness which actually perpetuates the alienation of the despised group. If an intellectual praises some virtue found among the "aliens", he might be called a traitor or denounced for being a "pseudo-intellectual", meaning someone who is downright stupid. Furthermore, efforts are made to justify presently inflamed passion by rewriting the past, or by continuing some historical animosity to the same purpose for the sake of rescuing insecure self-esteem. But it is precisely this tendency to elevate passion over reason and to exalt the base sentiment of the brute horde over the integrity of the human race, that all intellectuals worthy of their studies hope to ameliorate for the universal advancement of humankind.

In any event we must not allow false religion or spurious metaphysics to divorce our faith from reason, to denounce reason and make faithful brutes of us. Despite our shiny new playthings and even because of our inordinate devotion to them or the fetishistic mana we hope to obtain by incessant consumption of those things, there exists a clear and present danger of a spiritual reversion to those dark and barbarous times in the West before Islam returned the seeds of enlightenment they intially fostered in the arks of high civilization in Baghdad: the librarians welcomed the orphaned works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen and others. And it was not a case of returning something borrowed, but rather of giving something discarded back greatly improved by original ideas - the seeds under the light of the one god were hybrid. The single-minded revolutionary spirit of the Arabs domesticated many exotic strains under the shadow of swords. Some of the intellectual endeavors were quite useful; others were viewed as intellectual hobbies of no threat to Islam, or were thoughts too deeply rooted and far flung to be extirpated.

And of course first credit is due to the Greeks, and much credit is due to Syrians and Jews, as well as to the heretical Christian cults exiled to the East. And the Arabs were intermediaries for the Indians whose contributions are not to be ignored. We simply hold up the contributions of the medieval Muslim culture as an example of the pressing need to appreciate all human resources both present and past. Too many people refuse to admit that wherever evil is found some good exists as well, and instead focus on the worst they can find or imagine to the exclusion of the best, all for the unwitting sake of bestial ethnocentric, cultural and national self-identifications. Who is uglier, you or me? Then also your kind or my kind as well, regardless of the relative distinctions.

The Sun shining over the West today should not cause us to forget that it was not long ago when Muslims preferred not to reside in the West to oversee their interests, and left infidels in charge because of the general vulgarity and ignorance of nascent European civilization. Western intellectuals were also dismayed by such a dismal state of learning. For example, here is an excerpt from a letter written in the twelfth century by an Englishman, Daniel Morley, to his bishop:

"My passion for knowledge had chased me from England. I stayed awhile in Paris. There I saw only savages settled with grave authority in their scholarly seats, with two or three work stands in front of them loaded with enormous tomes reproducing the lessons of Ulpian (Roman jurist) in golden letters, writing plumes in their hands, with which they painted asterisks and obeli in their books. Their ignorance forced them to remain stiff as statues, but they pretended to show their wisdom with such silence. As soon as they opened their mouths I heard only the babbling of babes. Having understood the situation, I sought the means of escaping these risks and embracing the 'arts'... Since at present the instruction of the Arabs, which consists almost entirely of the arts of the quadrivium (sciences), is made in Toledo, I hastened there to attend the lectures of the most learned philosophers in the world... Let no one be shocked if while dealing with the world I invoke the teachings not of the Fathers of the Church, but of the pagan philosophers... We, too, have been mystically freed from Egypt, and the Lord has ordered us to strip the Egyptians of their treasures to enrich the Hebrews with them. Thus, in conformity with the Lord and with his help, let us rob the pagan philosophers of their wisdom and their eloquence, let us rob these infidels to enrich ourselves with their booty in faith."

Islam's contribution to Western intellectual culture is immortal. And for that contribution to the foundation of our modern scientific, philosophical and aesthetic intellectual development, intellectuals are eternally grateful. And we also thank the intellectuals who "robbed" them of their priceless treasures while extending the courtesy of naming the victims - long before the commercial genius extended the law of copyright about the globe, intellectuals considered it their bounden duty to pirate good ideas. Be that as it may, the fact of the Muslim contribution to Western culture remains and cannot be erased; once done, forever done. Moreover, notwithstanding the innocent ignorance of history, or its hateful repression, or the callous ingratitude of those who do not deny the incontrovertible fact itself, the fact remains. The fact was once revealed to every school child as a matter of fact: it was common knowledge because intellectuals, those who are devoted to learning and teaching, tend to give credit where credit is due, to the truth, in spite of any disinclination of their particular faith. It would be foolish not to do so, for the fact is readily available to anyone who cares to do a few hours of casual research.

Faithful fanatics whose personal security was in naive "wisdom" denied the virtues of Reason and defied the reasoning reintroduced to their precincts. In retrospect, from the perspective of our mass cultivation of moral "anarchy", we may deeply sympathize with them, especially those who found solitude and solace in remote monasteries. Daniel Morley had visited the traditional, decadent Paris: he missed the places in Paris taken over by Aristotelian thinkers who had abandoned faith for reason. Paris then was Babylon as far as some Christians were concerned, a devil's haven or den of inequity. St. Bernard beseeched the masters and students of Paris to flee to monasteries: "You will find much more in forests than in books," declared Bernard. Peter of Celle, another Cistercian, said, "No book is brought there, a writing master is not hired, there are no convoluted arguments, nor intricate sophisms, but the simple determination of all questions and the simple understanding of all reasons and arguments. There life teaches more than study, simplicity advances more than sophistry."

Of course the under the renewed influence of the East, the friars eventually became intellectuals in their own right, delving into university libraries holding forests of books both spiritual and secular. The development of Western universities along lines of the Arab model is described as follows:

"In the first place, a band of scholars went to muslim countries and made perosnal studies. Constantine of Africa and Adelhard made studies of this sort for the first time. Constantine, who was born in Carthage nere the end of the eleventh century, travelled all through the East.He made translations into Latin from the Arabic translations of Hippocrates' and Galen's books in addition to those of the original works of Muslim scholars on medical science. Later on, many students from Italy, Spain, and southern France attended Mustlim seminaries in order to study mathematics, philosphy, medicine. cosmography, and other subjects, and in due course became candidates for professorship in the first Western universities to be established after the pattern of the Muslim seminaries. The second phase starts with the founding of the first Western universities. The style of architecture of these universities, their curricula, and their method of instruction were exactly like those in the seminaries. First, the Salerno seminary was founded in the kingdom of Naples. Courses were offered in grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and cosmography. Books of Aristotle and those on the interpretation of his philosophy were brought to Italy by way of Salerno. Emperor Frederick of Sicily was known as the patron of Muslim science. He founded the seminary at Naples..." (Shariff)

Frederick II became Emperor in 1215. He was brought into close contact with Muslims during his crusading activities, and wound up adopting oriental costumes, Arabic customs and manners. Frederick was familiar with several languages: French, Italian, German, Latin, Greek and Arabic. He greatly admired Arabic philosophers whose works he was able to read in the original. Pope Gregory IX compared him to the blaspheming beast of the Apocalypse; in response, Frederick likewise called the pope an apocalyptic beast, "the great dragon which reduced the whole world." De Lacy O'Leary, a lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac at Bristol University, points out that in fact Frederick professed a perfecty orthodox attitude towards Moses, Christ and Muhammad, quite contrary to the pope's claim that he had blasphemed them as three great imposters. O'Leary traces the spread of Greco-Arabic philosophy from the university founded by Frederick in 1224 at Naples for the express purpose of introducting Arab science to the Western world. O'Leary mentions the place taken by the monastic friars:

"When the friars began to take their place in the work of the universities we note two striking changes: (i) the friars cut loose entire from the timid policy of conservatism and begin to make free use of all the works of Aristotle and of the Arabic commentators, and also make efforts to procure newer and more correct translations of the Aristotlian text from the original Greek; under this leadership the universities became more modern and enterprising in their scientific work, thought not without evidence of strong opposition in certain quarters. (ii) As a natural corrollary a more correct appreciation was made of the tendencies of the several commentators... The leader in these newer studies was the Franciscan Alexander Hales (d.1245)... From this time forth the Franciscans begin to use the Arabic commentators."

Very few Western scholars were familiar with the Greek language in medieval Europe, which relied on Latin as its learned language. Christians seeking Greek and Arabic texts went to Toledo, Spain,  a center of Greco-Arab scholarship, and all the way to Palermo, Sicily, where Greek, Latin and Arabic were spoken, to satisfy their curiosity. Teams of translators including Muslims, Jews, and Christians were eventually organized to translate the Greek and Arabic texts, pioneering the renaissance. Peter de Cluny (d.1156) and his team translated the Quran. Peter the Venerable conceived the then novel idea of learning the Islamic doctrine in order to contest it on intellectual grounds instead of the battlefield, thus setting the stage for Saint Thomas' attacks on Islam.  

"I thus went in search of specialists in the Arabic language which has enabled this lethal poison to infest more than half the globe. Using pleas and money I persuaded them to translate the history and the doctrine of that unfortunate man and his law which is called he Koran from Arabic into Latin..." said Peter.

Translators in Toledo, retaken from the Muslims in 1087, also proceeded under the protection of Archbishop Raymund (d.1151). Sometime later, Raymond Lull studied Arabic at Majorca and Muslim philosophy near Tunisia; he suggested to the pope that a moral crusade be initiated against Islam; at first his suggestions fell on deaf ears, however, the popes were eventually persuaded and thus was the Missionary movement instituted. Raymond Lull apparently admired the Sufis but hated Islam. To this very day many prejudiced Westerners hate Islam to the extent of denying its contribution to Western civilization. Yet that contribution is widely known by the world's intellectuals. For instance, in literary circles it is an understatement to say Islam's literature had an enormous influence on the development European literature, including upon such illuminaries as the great Italian master Dante. In fact, the intellect and the arts of the Occident have always been stimulated and inspired by the Oriental imagination despite the reluctance of antagonists to lay down their swords. Again, not all are grateful for Islam's contributions, and many have been unwilling to admit the virtues of their intellectual and physical enemies. Astute Western thinkers have occasionally chastized Westerners for their periodic waves of ingratitude. M.M. Sharif, a Muslim, described the situation as follows:

"It was at first difficult for the Western philosophers to get rid of religious, imperialistic, and racial prejudice and look at Islam and the East with understanding. In spite of the fact that Renaissance became possible only through profiting by Muslim works on philosophy, and science and their translations and interpolations thereof for centuries, the attitude of some Western people who were hostile to the very civilization that created these works indicates how deep-rooted the religious, political and racial prejudices were. From the eleventh to seventeenth century on, Western philosophers gradually got rid of their prejudices against Islam. Cultural influences from the Muslim East for centuries were instrumental in bringing about that change." (M.M. Shariff, A History of Muslim Philosophy, Karachi: Royal Book Company)

Many books and essays have been written on this subject. This certainly is not the place to examine them all and retrace the entire influence of Arabic culture on the West. I will, however, quote O'Leary's concluding paragraph to his chapter on the influence of the Arabic philosophers on Latin scholasticism, in his Arabic Thought and it's Place in History:

"We have now traced the transmission of a particular type of Hellenistic culture through the Syrian Church, the Zoroastrians of Persia, and the pagans of Harran to the Islamic community, where it was rather compromised by the patronage of those whom the official Muslim teachers decided to regard as heretics. In spite of this censure it has left a distinct and enduring impression on Muslim theology and popular beliefs. After a chequered career in the East it passed over to the Western Muslims community in Spain, where it had a very specialized development, which finally made a deeper impression on Christian and Jewish thought than on that of the Muslims themselves, and attained its final evolution in North-East Italy, where, as an anti-ecclesiastical influence, it prepared the way for the Renascence. But this main line of development is not really the most important; all along that line it was branching off to one side or another, and its richest fruits must be sought in these side issues, and in the scholasticism which, in Islam, in Judaism, and in Christianity, was a reaction from its teaching, and in the medical, chemical and other scientific studies in the Middle Ages, which largely owed their inspiration to its influence. It is the most romantic history of culture drift which is known to us in detail."

The modern scholar Jacques Le Goff sums up the benefit of the Greco-Arab contribution as follows:

"How did Western Europe benefit from this first type of researcher, these specialized intellectuals, these translators of the twelfth century? There was James of Venice, Burgundio of Pisa, Moses of Bergamo, Leo Tuscus in Bynzantium and in northern Italy, Henry Aristippus of Catania in Sicily, Adelard of Bath, Plato of Tivoli, Herman of Dalmatia, Robert of Ketten, Hugh of Santalla, and Gerard of Cremona in Spain. They filled in the blanks of Western culture left by the Latin heritage; in philsophy and above all in the sciences... And what was perhaps more important than the content of their work was their method... Such was the shock, the stimulation, the lessons of Hellenism, at the end of its long journey through the Orient and Africa, was communication to the West..." (Jacques Le Goff, Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, 'The Birth of the Intellectuals' translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan, Oxford: Blackwell)

The fact of Islam's influence on the Western intellect forever remains, and if we would denounce its underlying cultures, whose critical philosophers refuted even their own patron "saint", Aristotle, with great practical effect, we must condemn Western civilization in toto., which of course we are unwilling to do. Rather, the intellectuals of the world are grateful for the intellectual contributions of Muslim intellectuals, and we are not afraid to say so.