At the threshold of the 21st century Islam remains a badly misunderstood religion in the West. The history of its civilization and its contribution to humanity is neither taught nor explained and the masses are therefore not only ignorant of its splendid scientific culture but on the other hand are permeated with preposterous and forward ideas concerning Islam, considered to be the bane of all sorts of intolerance. All this stems but from ignorance, for if there is one example in the history of mankind when science was prevalent and the world was basking in its reflected glory, under theocratic states, it was solely and uniquely under Islamic government from the eighth to well nigh the seventeenth century. Yet most of the books on history fail to acknowledge the debt the world owes to the marvellous, exceptional and pioneering contributions - cultural, academic and scientific - made by the Islamic civilization.