civilisation

I find it really interesting that Middle Eastern culture and learning played a central role in the progress of Western civilisation. The medieval era in Europe was the golden age of Islamic/ Arabic scholarship, amd Arabic (not Latin) was the international language of scholarship. So, European scholars wanting access to the latest developments - wanting to read works on science, philosophy, and other fields of learning and/or wanting to read translations of the ancient Greek texts - would learn Arabic. Arabic scholars invented algebra, and developed astronomy, navigation, ways of telling the time and various other technologies. Concepts that were fundamental to the development of mathematics in the west, such as the use of zero in numbers and the use of decimals, came to the west from the Middle East. But what's most interesting to me, because of my interest in literature, is that all of the Ancient Greek texts were translated first by Arabic scholars, and that's how they came to the west, and that's a big deal because those texts were the driving force behind the rennaissance. 

So the Western canon and Western civilisation and culture have some very deep roots outside the west. It's also interesting that there's an Islamic influence, and that, for a very long time, there was an inter-faith collaboration in the area of learning and study.