The is-lamic world was once pre-eminent in philosophy and scientific inquiry. Then at the turn of the first millenium a new philosophical outlook ushered in a new distrust of all scientific inquiry. This new outlook was leader by the leading is-lamic theologian of the time, Al-Ghazali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali). His opus, "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers) was an attack on intellectual investigation. This new climate precipitated the decline of scientific investigation in the mu-slim world, a decline from which they have not recovered.