There appears to be a popular myth that at one time the Arab Moslems contributed greatly to modern culture, science, and technology… well, there is an article in the Brussels Journal that claims otherwise:
When the Arab Muslims, a collection of backward, nomadic warrior tribes who did not even have a fully developed script, conquered Egypt, Syria and Iran, they took control over some of the world’s largest centres of accumulated knowledge. To say that “Muslims” or “Islamic culture” created the civilizations of the Middle East can be compared to an illiterate person storming into the planet’s largest library, killing all the librarians and then claiming to have written all the books there. The cultural superiority of the Middle East in relation to Europe did not begin with Islam’s entry into the area. In fact, it ended with it… Islam’s much-vaunted “Golden Age” was in reality just the twilight of the conquered pre-Islamic cultures, an echo of times passed.