himself was a prophet. Despite the intense religion which 

 this man thus originated, his ideas were more primitive 

 than those of Buddha and Christ in the intolerance of other 

 religions which he advocated. This in fact led to the 

 Muhammedans undertaking bitter wars against surroun- 

 ing peoples, and by c. 1500 they had conquered all North 

 Africa, the Near East, and Spain, and had reached Vienna. 

 However from this time their influence declined with their 

 unsuccessful attempts at world domination. But neverthe- 

 less civilization profited on the whole from Muslim activity, 

 for during their period of supremacy lived men who upheld 

 the scientific investigations of the Greeks and indeed ad- 

 vanced them. Among these men were the philosopher and 

 great doctor Avicenna (c. 1030 A.D.) ; the explorer Batuta 

 (c. 1350 A.D.); and the writer Averroes, who produced 

 commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Mathe- 

 matics was considerably advanced by the Arabs, who used 

 the Indian numeral system and invented algebra. Astron- 

 omy, geography, and alchemy all flourished in Arab civili- 

 zation (the ideas of paper and block printing were obtained 

 from China), although the then predominant aims of 

 alchemy — the discovery of a method of converting metals 

 into gold, and the search for a chemical cure for all dis- 

 eases, were fruitless. The alchemists learned a great deal 

 about simple chemical reactions however, which formed 

 the basis of the new science of chemistry later on. The idea 

 of chemicals for the treatment of disease was nevertheless 

 a sound one, and thus the Arab alchemists may be credited 

 as the founders of chemotherapy. The great Arab cities 

 were at Damascus (Syria), Baghdad (Iraq) and Cordova 

 (Spain). 



Around 1050 A.D. the Arab Empire was taken over by 

 the fighting Turks from Central Asia, who stopped trade 



26 



