no, i never said they were primitive skills at all. you're putting words in my mouth.
byzantium and constantinople were a shadow of what you think of as "the byzantine empire" by the 1200s much less the 1450s. the rise of islam and after that the crusades destroyed anatolia as the eastern centre of knowledge and shifted that base mostly to baghdad, the capital of the islamic caliphate.
i'm a little too buzzed from drinking during football today to get into it all in depth now. but if you want me to tomorrow, i will elaborate.
LOL. Well, you earned some points for being buzzed, watching football, and posting about the impact of the last days of the Byzantine Empire.
No need to elaborate on the matter (unless you want to). We can end up debating endlessly about how much or how little the Fall of Constantinople fueled the Renaissance. You will find sources that claim less. I will find sources that claim more.
However, my ultimate goal was to demonstrate that people forget about the Byzantine Empire when they bring up the Middle Ages - and how it remained more or less intact for over 1000 years...twice as long as the Roman Empire. Philosophy, art, and science were in good hands - and when the time came, these intellectuals did migrate west and, at a minimum,
helped fuel the Renaissance - which eventually led to the Enlightenment and the birth of America...still considered the
best nation on earth according to number of people on this planet that want to (or do) migrate to it. Our cultural heritage is the
tree that provides the fruit.
So no, Western Civilization was not reliant on the Muslims, that's just revisionist/PC garbage...in fact,Europe spent a good chunk of the Middle Ages fighting off Muslim invaders (see Spain, Sicily, and Eastern Europe). I am totally with Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on their critique of Islam.
And the proof is in the pudding - look at the countries where Islam dominates...do
you want to live there? Heck, it seems even
they don't want to live there. The so-called "Golden Age of Islam" was only a result of the plunder from taking over wealthy Christendom lands in Asia Minor and North Africa (and eventually Spain) - after their conquest was stopped by the likes of Charles Martel - that gold eventually ran out...and, well...it's been about the same for a long, long...long time without much hope of things getting better.