The Conversation

Explainer: what Western civilisation owes to Islamic cultures

Author: Constant Mews, Director, Centre for Religious Studies, Monash University

Sculpture of ninth-century Persian scholar Al-Khwarizmi in Khiva, Uzbekistan. Latin discovery of Al-Khwarizmi's work introduced the numerals 0-9, one of many ways in which Islamic cultures have contributed to Western civilisation.LBM1948/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Algebra, alchemy, artichoke, alcohol, and apricot all derive from Arabic words which...

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