Fast Facts

  • Vasco da Gama used an Arab, Muslim pilot to guide him across 2000 miles of Indian Ocean to reach India and start Europe’s golden age.
  • Under the Muslims, Cordoba in Spain had ½ million inhabitants, 500 Mosques, 300 public baths, 70 libraries and miles of paved, lamp-lighted streets while the rest of Europe was in the Dark Ages. It was rivaled only by two other Muslim cities: Constantinople and Baghdad.
  • A century after the birth of Islam, its call to prayer (Azaan) rang from minarets all the way from the Atlantic to the outskirts of China, an empire larger than Rome at its zenith.
  • The Canon of Ibn Sina, a Muslim, remained Europe’s standard medical textbook for 500 years.