Taj Mahal in India is also a symbol of Muslim Heritage. The Muslim Times has the most extensive collection on the subject

Source: Huffington Post

By Sebastian Christ, HuffPost Germany

When thousands of “patriotic Europeans” took to the streets once again in Dresden to protest “the Islamisation of the West,” their actions were the result not only of resentment and fear, but also of ignorance.

Luckily for us, our central European culture has benefited from Islamic influences for hundreds of years.

If, on Monday evening in Dresden, one of the speakers adjusts his glasses, he probably doesn’t know he’s holding an invention from the Arab world. If one of the protesters starts singing right-wing songs, then he might be accompanying them on an instrument with Arabic origins – the guitar. And, on their placards, the supposedly horrifying figures about immigration will be written in Arabic numerals.

Here, the Huffington Post Germany presents eight things we owe to great Muslim civilizations.

1. Algebra

Many Westerners, Germans in particular, are proud of their feats of technology and engineering. But where would engineers be without algebra?

The mathematical system became known in Europe in the twelfth century, when British Arabist Robert of Chester translated the writings of Arab scholar Al-Khwarizmi. Al-Khwarizmi, for whom algorithms are named, is known as the developer of modern algebra.

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