Algebra: comes from the Arabic word, Al- Jabr and is traced back to the Babylonians, or better yet, Iraqi’s.

Cotton: the word cotton in English and Spanish, actually comes from the Arabic word Algodon

Aorta, alcohol, chemistry, earth and alkaline also come from the Arabic language and culture.

Astronomy was a subject of particular importance to Islamic scientific study. The Qu’ran advised Muslims to use the stars as a way of learning and glorfying God. The studying of eclipses, natural phenomenon and astronomical study by Muslims in the Golden Age of the 8th to 17th century, is still used in Europe and beyond.

The Qu’ran encouraged empirical observation and reason, the exploration of medicine and progressive methods of remedying illnesses. This, in turn, made way for much research in the area of medicine by Islamic scholars and doctors.

610-632, Muslim scholars and doctors were made aware of and began learning about leprosy, mange, sexually transmitted diseases, and other contagion. An Islamic calendar was also invented at the same time.

634-644 the windmill was invented in Afghanistan

In the 700s the brass astrolabe was developed by Muhammad al-Fazari, at the same time tin-opacified glazing in pottery was developed in Basra, Iraq.

The first milling factory was built in Baghdad in the 900s

Graph paper and the cartographic grid was invented in Baghdad in the 900s

900s – Muslim astronomers also invent the “almucantar quadrant navigational astrolabe vertical sundial, and polar sundial.”

900s – Shaving soap is invented by Arabic chemists.

900s – Alcohol is first employed for medical uses by Arabic physicians. They were the first in the world to use the method of distillation. The world alcohol comes from the Arabic word meaning “finely divided” referring to the distillation process.

800 – 1000 – Muslim engineers invented a variety of surveying instruments for accurate levelling, used for alignment, measuring angles, triangulation, finding the width of a river, and the “distance between two points separated by an impassable obstruction.”

Many medical institutions incorrectly believed by the masses to have been developed in the west, trace their origins in the medieval Islamic world: public hospital, psychiatric hospital, the public library, the “academic degree-granting” university and the “astronomical observatory as a research institute.”

The first forms of money were used in what is now Turkey. Forks, knives and other utensil remnants with dating back the farthest were also found in modern day Turkey.

Islamic expansion, exploration and observation led to many other great wonders of the world. This, sadly, is an inconclusive list and mere taste of what we make use of today with no thought or thanks to its inventors or establishers. Alot of Islamic tactics in medicine, agricultural and schooling can be seen in those methods used by modern Europeans and others.

Indeed, the gifts we revel in today come from the most unexpectant of places – including the treacherous, barbaric and criminalized Middle East. Think about it. Talk about it.