LEARNING AND ISLAM

~ 57 ~ East to West (when Islam acted as the teacher of the West).” 18 Another orientalist, the French Baron Carra de Vaux, underlines the achievements of the Arabs by stating that “the Arabs have really achieved great things in Science.” “However” he goes on to say, “we must not expect to find among the Arabs the same powerful genius, the same gift of scientific imagination, the same enthusiasm, the same originality of thought that we have among the Greeks; their science is a continuation of Greek science which it preserves, cultivates, and on a number of points develops and perfects.”19 Montgomery Watt, however, in his book entitled The Majesty That Was Islam, states that there is a tendency to belittle the work of the Arabs and to regard them as no more than transmitters of Greek ideas. He says that Arabs were much more than transmitters and that Arab science and philosophy contributed greatly to developments in Europe.20 This same author, however, makes another point, which is more open to objection than the remark that Arabs were mere transmitters. He writes: