[–] Shekelstein6M 2 points 0 points 2 points (+2|-2) ago
My only contention is that you seem to think progressed stopped and that they didn't advance the arts.
No, that's not what I said at all. I said that they got most of their progress from the lands they conquered. Scientific progress didn't stop, but it sure didn't come from arabs.
If arabs never became muslims and went on a conquest spree, the Byzantine and Scythian scholars would have done far far more for science than when they were conquered. Arab contributions to science were miniscule. Like I said before, even in your own link, most of the people aren't arabs.
I'd say they did far more harm to the scientific progress than good. Same as the Germanic, Slavic and Hunic tribes btw. Had they not conquered the Roman Empire, who's science rivaled even western scientific knowledge of 19th century, and who's industrial output was 4x that of China and was only surpassed in Europe by the 17th century, things would have developed much faster.
[–] TheBuddha [S] 2 points 0 points 2 points (+2|-2) ago
This is what I was responding to. That sure reads like you saying they stopped advancing the arts.
They also did a bit of advancement in chemistry - though I'm not really sure how much that really helped. "Alchemy" is from them, but chemistry isn't my discipline so I'm not sure where that went.
[–] Shekelstein6M 1 point 1 point 2 points (+2|-1) ago
So how does that translate to they "never advanced scientifically"?
Their empire was built around conquest. Without conquest they could not sustain anything, and thus everything turned to shit.