Martin Wainwright provides a valuable tonic for relations between Islam and the west. “Without the work of a 500-year succession of Islamic sages, we would have lost the essence of Aristotle, much of Plato and scores of other ancients.”
There are many other debts we have to Islamic civilisation, of course, but the story of how the basis of western philosophy was only preserved thanks to Islam is fascinating. I want to know more about Abu Ali Ibn Sina, or Avicenna as his name has been anglicised.