Yeah, like I said the Islamic nations did a much better job of preserving the actually useful knowledge of ancient Greece & Rome. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine, engineering etc. By comparison, Europe squandered that legacy. I'm just amazed we managed to make such a huge comeback post-renaissance.
The Islamic Middle East did a good job of persevering of Greek and Roman knowledge and as well as Zoroastrian and Hindu knowledge but after the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 AD, the Islamic civilization basically regressed. Perhaps, they felt that the Mongols was God's punishment for not being Islamic enough and that is why they became more insular and backward over the centuries.
Christian Europe progressed after rediscovering the ancient Greek and Roman knowledge and also after adopting the Arabic numeral system which itself was copied from the older Hindu numeral system.
Don't get me wrong. Christianity did a lot of good things for Europe and the Americas but we own alot to the Greeks, Romans Pagans and to a lesser extent Hindus, for the Western success over the centuries. They laid the foundation. The Muslims were middle men who preserved and transferred that knowledge to us during trade.