Until recently, Europeans little acknowledged the Medieval Arabic scientific discoveries, even though these were often the basis upon which European scientists began their own works. As a result, we are seeing today something of a U-turn in popular discussion of the history of science, whereby articles and museum exhibits like the popular presentation 1001 inventions make claims about the 10 things we owe to Muslim inventors, or how Islamic inventions changed the world. To understand the field, it is valuable now to try to find a position of balance that pays due attention to the achievements of science from the Islamic world. But also understanding the contexts. To start, the label 'Islamic' as we've seen in earlier modules, is a nuanced and quite a complex term for historical inquiry. During the period of the inventions we have described, the Middle East was indeed ruled by Muslim leaders, and they were influential patrons of scientific achievement. But, some of the scientists themselves were Jews and Christians, and much of the scientific work was grounded in books inherited from pre-Islamic peoples. Babylonian astronomy, ancient Greek and Roman medicine, mathematics, and philosophy alongside Indian works transmitted through pre-Islamic Persian, framed the questions and set out the trajectories for Muslim scientists. Of course, many Middle Eastern scientists were Muslim, and they did find justification from the Koran and the Hadith to explain why the study of natural science was worthwhile. They reason that, since God created everything in the world, the study of anything ultimately relates to understanding God's creation. Hence, pure scientific research could be interpreted as a worshipful exercise. But innovations were equally inspired by practical needs. Thus, Islamic piety was only one of many drivers behind their research. The precise Islamic nurses Medieval Arabic science is consequently a matter for close investigation. What we do see is that the structure of medieval Muslim society formed a helpful background for research. The initial spread of the caliphate and the Koran, and its Arabic language enabled Arabic to emerge as the one unified scientific language from the Atlantic to Central Asia. Also, Muslim rulers funded researchers, and religious motivations led them to found hospitals and madrassas which encouraged further research. So, the environment created by Islamic religious tolerance also allowed scientists of all religious backgrounds to work together, and talent rose to the top. Theologians did critique some works. Especially those which they deemed philosophical speculation about God. So, some scientists did find themselves under the criticism of Islamic scholars. But, the absence of a powerfully institutionalized church like organization meant that the power of theologians to halt research was curved. While there are accounts of scientists philosophers run out of town by theologians, there're also the madrassas that included scientific subjects alongside religious studies, demonstrate how the relationship of science and religion was amicable too. From the perspective of modern science, the innovations of medieval Islam have naturally now receded into the background, as several centuries of refinement and development have created new fields of inquiry, and inventions of microscopes, telescopes, and other tools of observation mean that most results of the naked eyed medieval scientists are now superseded. From the perspective of today therefore, Islamic science can be understood as a foundation for modern science, and it should be celebrated as a historical achievement of pre-modern societies. Accordingly, the search for a balanced depreciation of Islamic science will pull back from some of the exaggerated claims made today, that for example, the ninth century Ta'Lucian Abbas Ibn Firnas was the first human to fly. The historicity of his flight is not recorded in contemporary texts outside of one poem, and later Arabic historians actually debated how far he got. The point of agreement is that Abbas don't feathers and then he fell. Fortunately, not fatally, and the 17th century Algerian historian thought that Abbas would have fared better if he had also attached a bird's tail along with the feathers. Really, Abbas needed an engine, but that was 1,000 years away from him. Over-exaggeration does not do true justice to the nature and impact of Medieval Muslim contributions to science. Instead, the historically grounded approach will: A: study the precise ways in which scientists in the Islamic world developed the pre-Islamic legacies they inherited, and B: locate concrete examples of how Medieval Muslim culture influenced Western Europe and ultimately helped shape the world as it is known today. Civilizations rise and fall. But scholars and scientists have the good fortune of being able to pick up the achievements of the past, develop them, and then hand them on to the next centers of civilization, which perpetuate the process. Science will flourish where there's both wealth and an appreciation amongst the wealthy for the work of scientists. It was between the eighth and 17th century that a felicitous mix of affluence, state patronage, tolerance, and communication networks across the Middle East enabled science to flourish in Abbasid Baghdad, Mamluk Cairo, and Ta'Lucia, Turkey, and Central Asia, in a remarkably prolific and long lasting dialogue of exchange and innovation.