Without the gifts of Islamic civilisation in philosophy and astronomy, mathematics and physics, art and architecture, "modern" Europe would have been virtually impossible.
Of course a multitude of sins can be hidden in a "virtually".
And then she draws forth this old saw from her quiver... if I may mix metaphors...
When London was little more than a collection of huts built along the banks of a muddy river, a few hundreds of miles away, Cordoba, Granada and Seville were vibrant, flourishing metropolises which gave the continent its first universities, street lights, pavements, sewage systems, windmills and public parks.
The problem is that I found that line a lot more convincing when it was delivered by Alec Guinness in Lawrence of Arabia.
To quote an American sage "What have you done for me lately?"
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