How Islamic Inventors Changed the World

The Independent has a top 20 list of the Islamic inventions (and their inventors) that changed the world. The list was culled from the 1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World. In summary:

1. Coffee came from an Arab named Khalid, who was tending goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia.
2. 10th century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham, was the first person the realize that we see because light enters our eyes. He invented the pinhole camera, and is credited with shifting physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
3. Although a form of chess was played in ancient India, the chess we know today, comes from Persia.
4. Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer, Abbas ibn Firnas, made several attempts at constructing a flying machine. In 875, at age 70, he stayed in the sky for about 10-minutes before crash landing. A crater on the Moon is named after him.
5. Arabs combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics to create soap -- the soap that we still use today. In 1759, a Muslim brought shampoo to England, when Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths was opened in Brighton.
6. Islamic scientist Jabir ibn Hayyan transformed alchemy to create modern chemistry in the 800s. His processes and apparatus are still used today, such as, liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. He invented the alembic still, giving the world intense perfumes and alcoholic spirits.
7. Muslim engineer al-Jazari, invented the crank-shaft, central to most modern machinery, to translate rotary motion to linear. He also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons; devised some of the first mechanical clocks; is considered the father of robotics; and invented the combination lock.
8. Quilting was most likely was imported to the Arab world from India or China -- but it was from Arabia that it traveled to Europe during the Crusades.
9. A lot of European architecture borrowed from Arab architecture -- allowing buildings to be taller, more complex and stronger.
10. 10th century Muslim surgeon, al-Zahrawi, invented many of the modern surgical instruments still in use today, such as, scalpels, bone saws, forceps, and fine scissors for eye surgery. He also discovered that catgut could be used for internal stitching and medicine capsules, as it naturally dissolved away. As well, 13th century Muslim medic, Ibn Nafis, described blood circulation 300 years before William Harvey did -- while other Muslim doctors invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.
11. The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph. It would take another 500 years before it arrived in Europe.
12. The technique of inoculation was devised and used in the Muslim world and was brought to Europe by the wife of an English ambassador in 1724.
13. The fountain pen was invented in 953 for the Sultan of Egypt.
14. The modern numbering system came from India, but the style of the numerals is Arabic, and first appeared in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry, as well as the foundations of modern cryptology came from the Muslim world. Muslim mathematics arrived in Europe hundreds of years later.
15. In the 9th century, Ali ibn Nafi, came from Iraq to Cordoba, and brought with him the concept of the three-course-meal.
16. Carpets came from the Arab world to Europe.
17. The modern cheque came from the Arabic saqq -- a written promise to pay. It was used in the Muslim world in the 9th century.
18. In the 9th century, Muslim scholars accepted that the world was round, and calculated the Earth's circumference to 200km accuracy. 500 years later, Galileo realized that the world was round, and got in big trouble for it.
19. The Chinese invented gunpowder, but the Arabs refined and weaponized it. In the 15th century, they had rockets and torpedoes.
20. The concept of having gardens as a place of beauty and meditation is an Arabic one, that was brought to Europe in the 11th century.

When you read a list like that, you can help but wonder ... just what went wrong with modern Muslims? Yes, I know, the answer is complex ... but ...