Islamic Science

Abstract

While the candle of knowledge sputtered and was almost extinguished in the West, it shone with a new light in the East. The holy fire of Islam, which rose in the Middle East, rapidly spread throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe. By the seventh century, the Arabs had conquered Persia, Syria, and Egypt, and the surviving Greek texts came into their possession. They captured North Africa, then Spain, which they held for almost 500 years until the expulsion of the Arabs by Queen Isabella in the fifteenth century.