What Non-Muslims Say About Islam p.5

Bertrand Russell

(1872-1970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate, whose emphasis on logical analysis greatly influenced the course of 20th-century philosophy.

q  "Our use of the phrase 'the Dark Ages' to cover the period from 699 to 1,000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe… From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary… To us it seems that West-European civilization is civilization; but this is a narrow view."

[History of Western Philosophy, London, 1948, p. 419]