Pirates me hearties, pirates!

[Jester]

Hi,
Interesting. Mind elaborating? While I'm aware that the Arabs and Islam were preservers of the classical Greek culture which was 'misplaced' in much of the West, I've always felt that that culture was foreign to the Islamic mindset. That their social norms and mores came more from the traditional behaviors of Arabia, with strong influences from the Middle East and not from the West. But if you have a story to tell of how the classic Greek culture influenced the Arab world, I'd be very interested to learn it.

--Pete

Not so much that Islamic culture has a special affinity, as no culture (not even and perhaps even especially the Greeks themselves) have kept the culture of golden age Greece from antiquity to present. If you're drawing the lineage chain back, the Islamic world is on it, the closer to the Mediterranean the better. But it's silly to pretend that, say, Britain, or the US, derives their culture directly from the Greeks. If anything, it's closer the other way around.

-Jester