Science in the Middle East isn't dead, but it isn't exactly alive, either. According to Thomson Reuters' Science Watch, the Arabian, Persian and Turkish Middle East produces only 4% of the world's scientific literature. Paltry by almost any standards, that value is even more diminutive when paired with the fact that the Middle East, at one time, led the world in science.
Between the dawn of the 9th Century and the middle of the 13th Century, a time when Europe was languishing in the Dark Ages, Islamic scholars were taking monumental strides in mathematics, medicine, and physics. Thinkers of all religions and ethnicities gathered in cosmopolitan cities like Baghdad and Damascus to discuss the latest discoveries and theoretical concepts. Ideas became so highly valued, they were almost a form of currency. Observatories were built to study the sky. Algebra was born. The use of Arabic numerals -- 0, 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, -- became widespread.
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