During the seventh century, while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, Islam came onto the scene and Muslim armies established a vast empire that stretched from Central Asia through parts of Europe all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The Muslim rulers of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties (661–1258 CE) recognized the advanced development of the kingdoms and cultures they had conquered and took it upon themselves to assimilate and adopt these cultures. They established libraries and translation centers where the great works of science, medicine, and philosophy, both Eastern and Western, were collected and translated. This age of translation was followed by a period of great creativity as a new generation of Muslim thinkers and scientists built upon this knowledge and made their own contributions.

XREF: Connects to narratives of the Islamic Golden Age and the transmission of Greek texts into Europe via translation movements.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 186