HOW TO LEAD, EVEN IN DEFEAT

How to Lead, Even in Defeat ~ 313 ~ The selection of Al-Idrisi for the mammoth task of preparing maps of the whole of the known world shows, as the historian. J.H. Kramers has pointed out, that at that time the intellectual and academic superiority of Muslims was accepted by one and all. Roger II certainly appreciated the worth of Muslim scholars: he encouraged and sponsored them in their work and—in the words of one historian— “made Sicily a major meeting place for Christian and Arab scholars.” Though defeated on the field of battle, Muslims continued their intellectual and academic dominance, even in the court of their conqueror. This was because at that time Muslims were far and wide the most advanced race in almost every field of knowledge. The legacy of Islam lives in European languages, which retain many words of Arabic origin. Muslims today complain of their political, economic and military subjection to non-Muslim nations. They think that they can take back, by protest and militancy, what has been seized from them. But the case of Roger II of Sicily—his respect for Muslim