Different answers have been given to this question...

Different answers have been given to this question, but the one answer that has repeatedly worked to man's everlasting benefit is the one that has been expounded from all angles by the truly enlightened Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (a.s). The discreet reader will find in the pages that follow a veritable mine of information covering almost all aspects of human knowledge.

He shall find that most of the information for which the West gets credit was transmitted thereto from the fountainhead of our great thinkers, among whom the most eminent is Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (a.s) whose teachings are recorded in many collections of apostolic narrations, particularly in Bihar al-Anwar a vast Encyclopedia of learning in no less than twenty-seven volumes.

[1] Imam as-Sadiq (a.s) lectured in Medina to thousands of scholars who flocked to this center of learning from all parts of the known world. They carried away to the far-flung provinces of the [1] One hundred and ten volumes in the new editions. Muslim Empire the light of original thought and research. It was the torch lit ablaze by Imam as-Sadiq (a.s) in Medina that set his devout scholars on the path of inquiry and research.

It was by this nucleus that the four corners of the known world received their awakening to the resplendent vistas of the various branches of knowledge. It should be remembered that all this was being achieved not because of any encouragement from the state but rather against the teeth of opposition characteristic of despotic regimes.

A very important aspect of this dissemination of learning, which runs as a soul-stirring strain throughout the system of education that was inaugurated by Imam as-Sadiq (a.s), is the insistence and emphasis on the Ideology of Islam and its fundamental tenet Tawheed (oneness of God). Imam as-Sadiq (a.s) himself, infused as he was with the crystalline purity of the Ideology, infused that same galvanizing spirit into his following.

They, in turn, became the torchbearers of the light of learning in distant lands, notably the Southern gateway of Europe Andalusia. They were the people who wrote one of the brightest chapters in the intellectual history of Medieval Europe. They were the main bearers of the torch of the culture, science and philosophy which made possible the Renaissance of learning in Western Europe.