Talk:Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe

About title of the article
I would like to suggest caution with the title of the article. “Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe” is a misleading title because there were also Jewish and Christian scholars living in territories under Arab or Islamic control who were writing in Arabic or translating texts. We may think of the preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher, Torah scholar and physician of the Middle Ages, Mosheh ben Maimon (משה בן מימון), called Moses Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون‎), or RaMBaM (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Mosheh Ben Maimon"). The Wikipedia article “Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain” gives an account of notable Jewish figures from this time.“Arabic contributions to Medieval Europe” is also insufficient because there are contributors or scholars who were not Arabs or didn’t live within the Arabic realm such as the Persian polymath Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā (Persian پور سينا Pur-e Sina [ˈpuːr ˈsiːnɑː] "son of Sina"; known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna. Perhaps a proposal for re-naming this article could be considered or discussed about something like “Contributions, influence and cultural exchange of the Islamic Golden Age to Medieval Europe” --artchibras (talk) 04:18 p.m., 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I can understand the desire to have a better title. As you note, Maimonides is a prominent figure in the period, and he's certainly not Islamic by religion, but also as you note, Arabic contributions might be even more inaccurate. However your proposed alternative is not exactly snappy. Would you be happy with e.g. Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe? The reason Maimonides is included is because he lived in Islamic Spain and North Africa; Islamic world seems to cover this reasonably well to me. --Merlinme (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"Contribution" is by far an incorrect statement as arabs had no collaborative approach with westerners, the latter indeed borrowing from the former, what is more spying, intake would be closer to the reality : "Medieval Europe intakes from Islamic world". This alternate title also outpints that Europe was the acting party of that process, whereas Islamic world was passive provider without any willing for doing so. Gollan (talk) 10:49, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Misuse of sources
This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

I have archived this talk page; many comments on undue material can be found in Archive 1.

Diffs for each edit made by Jagged 85 are listed at cleanup1. It may be easier to view the full history of the article.

A script has been used to generate the following summary. Each item is a diff showing the result of several consecutive edits to the article by Jagged 85, in chronological order. Johnuniq (talk) 23:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe:
 * John, how can this be? This tool shows Tagged 85 to have only 'contributed' 10 edits. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've not used that tool before, but it looks like you're looking at Talk page diffs rather than article page diffs. Cleanup1 lists 162 edits. --Merlinme (talk) 16:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress report: currently on diff 5 from this list. --Merlinme (talk) 17:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress report: currently on diff 7 from this list. This includes pretty much the whole Technology section. --Merlinme (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress report: currently on diff 11 from this list. --Merlinme (talk) 10:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress report: currently on diff 14 from this list. --Merlinme (talk) 10:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress report: currently on diff 15 from this list. --Merlinme (talk) 17:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Done! Thankfully the second half of the list was much quicker to go through than the first, as most of the Jagged changes were either minor or I'd already checked the relevant text in the current article. Anyway, while not perfect the article is hopefully now a lot better. I'll remove the tag and update the Jagged cleanup page. One article down, a few hundred to go... --Merlinme (talk) 16:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Blimey, did it really take me six months? Well, got there in the end, anyway. Although it's rather annoying when I think that instead of spending all that time removing guff I could have been improving other articles. --Merlinme (talk) 16:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Jagged tag
I've tagged the article with a Jagged tag while I'm working my way through the (long) list of diffs and sources. It's probably going to take me weeks to finish this.

At first glance there seem to be more problems with balance and undue weight than outright errors, so a NPOV tag might be better, but some editors find that tag rather provocative. If someone wishes to suggest a more appropriate tag, I'm open to suggestions. --Merlinme (talk) 10:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I had a look at the diff and I had the impression the work was mostly done. Should we leave the tag? If some doubts persist, maybe we should just tag individual paragraphs? --Anneyh (talk) 11:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, no, it's better than it was but I'm not even close to finishing yet. I've been on holiday for a few days which hasn't helped. --Merlinme (talk) 18:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've finally finished going through the Jagged diffs, I'll remove the tag. --Merlinme (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

IP deletions
An IP deleted a substantial portion of the article without an edit summary. Some of the deleted text was tagged. Bloodofox has reverted my revert, citing WP:PROVEIT, "You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source." However this is to rather ignore the following sentences: "Whether and how quickly removal should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself." I would therefore suggest that unless the material is clearly wrong, time should be given to find sources, or the editor considering deletion should even attempt to find the sources themselves rather than just delete.

To consider the deletions in detail:
 * an entire paragraph on the well-known Sicilian and Spanish translations was deleted because of a tag at the end of the paragraph: "These scholars translated many scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic into Latin.{fact|date=February 2012}". This seems like over-kill, and days is certainly not a long enough amount of time to allow for finding sources, certainly without discussing on Talk first.


 * Abu al-Qasim was unlinked from Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, I assume this is just a different name but I haven't checked. If this had been the only change I would probably have let it stand, although an edit summary would still have been nice.
 * Text which is essentially a summary of the Geber and Pseudo-Geber articles was deleted, again having been tagged since February 2012, i.e. this month. Again, I would suggest this is far too short a period between tagging and deletion for material which is not obviously wrong (is, in fact, probably broadly correct). Unless it was obviously wrong I would personally probably have given it a couple of months and then raised it on Talk before deleting. Certainly there's nothing in WP:BURDEN to suggest that you should delete such material after a few days, not having raised it on Talk, apparently having made no effort to verify it yourself, and without so much as an edit summary.

I'll try to find time to find sources in the next seven days. --Merlinme (talk) 09:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've now checked Abu al-Qasim, and it links to a disambiguation page. The fact that the IP edit had made ambiguous something which was previously unambiguous has rather tended to confirm my belief that this was not a helpful edit. --Merlinme (talk) 09:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * All of the removed material was unreferenced, and neither I nor the IP have any need to invest any time in reference fetching or verification. Indeed, WP:PROVEIT flatly states that "the burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source." See that bold? The rest is suggested etiquette behavior, and it has even been met; "consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step" has already been abided by, which is a courtesy. For obvious reasons, there's no waiting period for unreferenced material. If you want the deleted material restored without simply being removed again, I suggest you spend the time fetching the references (if they exist) and stop wasting the time of other users with pointless edit warring. Indeed, restoring unreferenced material and insisting that other users fetch the references that should have been added with the material to begin with is flatly ridiculous and is a quick way to turn a smooth process (get references --> restore) into a drawn out, messy process (restore tagged, unreferenced material --> draw ire of other who may otherwise agree with you, such as myself). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 15:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You're ignoring the letter and spirit of WP:BURDEN (not to mention WP:AGF). The very fact that the Fact template only has a resolution of months, not days, would rather suggest that deleting something which it is relatively easy to find support, without discussing on the Talk page, without following "good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself", and without even one month passing after the tagging, is incorrect. Unless you're proposing to stub all articles of B class and below, I find your support for an IP user who doesn't even leave edit summaries, frankly bizarre. --Merlinme (talk) 15:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to be implying that this process is "simple" if the deletion is allowed to stand; in this context I particularly object to the failure to use an edit summary (or discuss on Talk). I also find using the Fact template at the end of a relatively uncontroversial paragraph particularly unhelpful in this context, as it was not particularly clear what was being objected to. If editors are not zealously checking every edit in their watchlists it would be very easy for these sorts of deletions to be allowed to stand without anyone noticing the deletion. I also particularly object to your reverting my substantive edit (regarding Albucasis), which was a DISAMBIGUATION, for goodness' sake. The fact you've reverted that rather suggests to me that you are not editing as carefully as I would hope. --Merlinme (talk) 15:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The "letter and spirit" of WP:PROVEIT is to get unreferenced material off of Wikipedia. Personally, I spend a lot of time sourcing my contributions beyond any shadow of a doubt and I expect the same of others on and off Wikipedia. The last thing that Wikipedia needs is the restoration of more unreferenced material. Indeed, one of the best things that could happen on Wikipedia is that swarms of anonymous IPs went around deleting unreferenced material on Wikipedia, edit summaries or not, and I find it bizarre that you are don't see the importance of getting anything that could potentially be misinformation off of Wikipedia. To quote Jimbo Wales; "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You're rather ignoring the end of that quote, i.e. "...unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." This information can be sourced, and it's not a BLP. Also, please could you revert the disambiguation which you removed. --Merlinme (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "Unless it can be sourced" --> Find a source for it and readd it. This is simple enough. I'll restore your disambiguation edit. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've restored referenced text. I didn't restore the Marcelin Berthelot text, as he's a 19th century writer and it's not relevant. I've made a few other minor changes.

Someone reading the text with a critical eye and highlighting questionable sentences is helpful; tagging entire paragraphs (which are largely summaries of linked, referenced articles) and then deleting them without so much as an edit summary, let alone a discussion, on the other hand, I still think is destructive to the encyclopedia. --Merlinme (talk) 19:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Vocabulary
The article is a trainwreck, I imagine determined by its editorializing choice of title ("contributions" rather than a more neutral or symmetric concept such as "cultural contact"). Still, I do not have the time to fix it, let alone argue over it. Let me just discuss the vocabulary section, because it insults my philological sensitivities.

It is introduced "The adoption of the techniques and materials from the Islamic world is reflected in the origin of many of the Arabic words now in use in the Western world."

This is true enough. What follows is a random list of loanwords: --- Now many of these are neither "materials" nor "technologies". I take issue with the following: --dab (𒁳) 12:35, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Admiral, from amir al-bahr امير البحر (“Prince of the sea”)
 * Alchemy/ Chemistry, from al kemiya' (الكيمياء)
 * Algebra, which comes from al-djabr (الجبر)
 * Algorithm, from the name of the scientist al-Khwarizmi (الخوارزمي)
 * Almanac, from al-manakh (المناخ) (timetables)
 * Amber, from Anbar (عنبر)
 * Artichoke, from ard-i-choke (أرضِ شوكي)
 * Avarie (French for "ship damage"), from awar (عَوَر) ("damage")
 * Baldaquin, from a tissue material made in Baghdad
 * Camphor, from kafur
 * Carat (unit), from qīrāṭ (قيراط) ("mass")
 * Coffee, from Kahwa (قهوة)
 * Cotton, from koton (قطن)
 * Gauze, from qazz (قز) ("raw silk")
 * Hazard, from az-zahr (الزهر) (game of dice)
 * Lacquer, from lakk
 * Lute, from al-ud (العود)
 * Magazine, from makhâzin (مخازن)
 * Mate (as in "Checkmate"), from mât (مات) ("Death")
 * Orange, from nârandj (نارنج)
 * Racket, from râhat (راحات) (palm of the hand)
 * Schedule, from jadwal (جدول)
 * Sorbet, from sharab (شراب \ شربة)
 * Sugar, from soukkar (سكّر)
 * Zero, from Greek zephyrus which comes from şifr (صفر) ("zero")
 * Admiral, just a military rank, not a "contribution", neither technological nor otherwise, just proves cultural contact
 * Avarie (French for "ship damage"), from awar (عَوَر) ("damage"); again, a word for "damage" is hardly a "contribution"
 * Coffee, not a medieval word. True enough that the word is from the Arabic, but it's early modern.
 * Hazard, from az-zahr (الزهر) (game of dice): doubtful etymology
 * Lacquer, from lakk: yes, but from Persian, not Arabic
 * Orange, not an Arabic word at all
 * Racket, from râhat (راحات) (palm of the hand): "has been suggested", but extremely uncertain
 * Schedule, from jadwal (جدول): complete nonsense

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Aldrevandini example - How is this an islamic contribution again?
Please look at the following examples, all from Graeco-Roman antiquity (1st/2nd century):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CG7RoV_WcAAYBL7.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/4d/a5/6a/4da56aa1031532b9fa968554e9195abc.jpg http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/glass-painted-goblet-from-the-first-century-discovered-at-the-site-picture-id80679482 https://elizabethkrallphotos.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/04-glass.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ca/94/49/ca9449f88db8d414a9ab8a60fee118a9.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b2/5f/47/b25f47323bfbb553d18c64276ca9e711.jpg

_How is this an Islamic contribution?_ Is it a contribution to first destroy a civilization, and then reintroduce something which already existed for centuries before the civilization which invented it was subdued and erased from the surface of Africa and all Asia (Hellenic culture)?

And the same can be said directly about most of the literature and scientific contributions mentioned in this article: "advanced gearing in waterclocks and automata"

And this place may be full with Muslims who are eager to push an agenda - why is there no 'Christian contributions to the Islamic world' article? do we seriously hold that there was no such contribution? - but please rationally answer this:

How is it a contribution to first conquer and annihilate a civilization by conquest and subjugation, the Graeco-Roman civilization, and then afterwards introduce things already invented.

There is a real contribution of Islamic scholars, in mathematics, philosophy, vocabulary and textual transmission of a few classics (please present a scholarly estimate of what percentage of surviving texts did survive due to Islamic copying, you will find it minimal), but why exaggerate to this preposterous extent? Is it, perhaps, to furnish people with arguments to support a certain cause, rather than actual pursuit of objective truth in an encyclopaedia - it should not be.

No Islamic astronomer ever developed a heliocentric model, but Aristarchus of Samos did, more than a thousand years before there even was an Islamic astromer. How are the Muslim astronomers making a contribution by writing down theories that _eventually_ lead to something already discovered 900 years before Muhammed was born?

Then there is an abundance of weazel words ('many', 'some', 'was said to..', 'one of the most commonly held theories is..' etc), illresearched etymologies and questionably presented facts and half truths (it claims that Ptolemy's SYNTAXIS "had survived and been translated into Arabic in the Muslim world".

It does not mention Constantinople even ONCE although the city was both 'medieval' and 'European' and 95% of all classical texts survive via Constantinople, which incidentally only could preserve all that knowledge because it withstood the Muslim onslaught. Had it not succeeded in doing that, in 678 and 718, the capital's manuscript should have been lost forever like the manuscripts in the rest of the mediterranean world that was formerly Roman or Greek - even in modern times we still excavate the dungheaps of Egypt at Oxyrhynchus etc. for scraps of evidence). And then the entire Dante nonsense.

Finally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system#History

- how is it a contribution to copy something invented in India, which is then copied once again in Europe.

Astrolabe improvements, pseudo-kufic ornament, mathematical innovations, some medicine, all valid contributions.

In the end it all boils down to this: What were their _original_ contributions, or what did they preserve of ancient knowledge that was not already preserved at constantinople. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.58.231.207 (talk) 16:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


 * "contribution" is a loaded term, I suppose, and the number of original innovations is very limited, but the period of cultural contact is nevertheless of great significance in Western history. It is possible to overstate the significance, though, as substantial cultural influence leading to the Renaissance was also due to Greek scholars moving to Italy after the Fall of Constantinople, but it cannot be denied that medieval Europe in the 12th century was basically dependent on Andalusia as its source of Greek astronomy and philosophy. --dab (𒁳) 13:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Totally second the standing of the original commentator. Most of the "contributions" stated are bare translations of original Greek and Persian texts, which are falsely presented as "Arabic texts" in anatomy, medicine, mathematics. Greece had Hippocrates, Euklides and a plethora of others that contributed in medicine and sciences. Who were the arab contributors exactly? This place may be full with Muslims who are eager to push an agenda, but we should try to hold it historically correct. Biomed res (talk) 09:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

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Content changes by Biomed
Per WP policy (WP:NPOV), when article text is supplied with citations, believing that it's wrong isn't a valid reason for changing it. If article content doesn't reflect the cited source, that's one valid reason. If the source doesn't meet reliability criteria, that's another. Otherwise, if other sources disagree, they should be reflected proportionally, as described in WP:NPOV. As of now, I see no evidence that you're following our policies. A quick spot check of your commentary (Corrected false statement. "Alchemy" and "Chemistry" are terms of greek origin) against etymologies given by Merriam-Webster shows that the text you removed was correct (Chemistry < Chemist < New Latin chimista < Medieval Latin alchimista < Arabic < Greek). Please engage with the sources and be sure to follow NPOV. Thanks. Eperoton (talk) 00:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)