This is one of the best articles I've read on the subject, and reviews several books on the subject (I've posted this here before but probably no one paid any attention). It's an amazing story. But Islam of today is only a husk of the original Islamic Empire governed by the Umayyad Caliphs. What you call "Islamic" contribution is really primarily Islam being a transmitter of another culture--Classical culture.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17516
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be.
—Paul Auster
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