March 5, 2004

The Arab World's Scientific Desert

By DANIEL DEL CASTILLO

Once a leader in research, the region now struggles to keep up

Eleven centuries ago an Islamic renaissance occurred in Baghdad, attracting the best scholars throughout the Muslim world. For the next five hundred years, Arabic was the lingua franca of science. Cutting-edge research was conducted in cities such as Cairo, Damascus, and Tunis. In the ninth century, algebra (al-jabr) was invented by a Muslim mathematician in Baghdad under the auspices of an imperial Arab court dedicated to

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