There's no small Arabic/Moorish influence on these in European culture in the early Mediaeval period - and we've not yet mentioned the spice and silk trades.
Sorry, everything I mentioned came from the "white man", the Hindus, Egyptians, Persians, Mesopotamia and European culture. The Moors and arabic culture never had anything they didn't conquer, kill and overtake by brute force. What happened to the islamic "golden age" after islam conquered all these great places? It all stopped, rather quickly.
You can equate it a bit to how the Christians took over heathen Europe. Over all the religious places of worship, there were built churches, all the nice and accepted traditions like yule celebrations, traditions like santa claus, the christmas tree, summer and winter solstice, all these were stolen/taken/incorporated into Christianity so to not upset the locals too much.
The same happened with the muslims in Persia and other places mentioned above. They came in, took over what was there, like math, science, algebra, litterature, and made it "arabic", translated much of it and then passed it on as "theirs". Tody, sadly, there are few remnants of those great civilizations, and only islam in it's pure form remains. Oppressing, non-democratic, homophobic, sexist and religious intolerant to other faiths and their lands former history and knowledge.
But as all these sciences and technology slowly ventured up north, to free havens like Europe, and our continent started to blossom! Today one can clearly see the difference in our ways of life. This is not a coincidence.
Arab conquest of non-muslim lands after 600AD:
everything2.com/title/Chronology+of+the+Arab+Conquest
This one is a bit long, but very informative on how the muslim took over Persia and ruined it;
"The Arabs those days knew nothing about art, architecture, mathematics, astronomy and chronology. Arab conquerors were even surprised when they robbed their first coins. So after four centuries of Islamization in Persia the light of science and knowledge had slowly faded away".historymedren.about.com/library/text/bltxtiraq4.htm
How Mesopotamia as it was called under Greek rule was conqured and today is called Iraq;
"Most of the Iraqi tribes were Christian at the time of the Islamic conquest. They decided to pay the jizya, the tax required of non-Muslims living in Muslim-ruled areas".onlydemocracy4iran.com/2010/09/05/the-golden-age-of-islam-another-theft-of-persian-heritage-and-history/
And last, my favourite, "What arab civization?"
"You state, "its architects designed buildings that defied gravity." I am not sure what you are referring to, but if you are referring to domes and arches, the fundamental architectural breakthrough of using a parabolic shape instead of a spherical shape for these structures was made by the Assyrians more than 1300 years earlier, as evidenced by their archaeological record".ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
All the science, the numbers, the astronomy, astrology...it was already there, Alexw68. Just look at the nobel prize winners list...how many muslims do you find there in math and science? The ones with arab sounding names are mostly Christian arabs, educated in Europe or the US. So still today, the arab/muslim world cannot keep up with us...something to think about?
DariuszTelka
Mod: Sorry, off-topic again....last time, I promise.