[hopw_roewur_ne]

I mean, sure. But there seems to be this weird underlying idea that the world owes Islam a debt of gratitude for conquering the region where these texts existed and had been successfully transcribed and preserved under Christian rule for hundreds of years already, as if they swooped in at just the right moment to save them from being swallowed by the desert.

[alphachloride]

It rarely makes sense to debate what-ifs in history. Because we don't know the alternate. We owe all past scholars a debt of gratitude for being the keepers and makers of knowledge as it passed through time. That includes the Greece, Rome, India. That includes the Islamic caliphate, especially during the Islamic Golden Age.