A is for Arabs

K is for kebab
Next time you're munching on a Nathans, or, in my case, disputing the nutritional value of chorizo with the missus, you have the Moor to thank. Cured meats and sausages and the humble kebab, usually lamb or beef (never pork), were among the culinary delights that came to Europe via Islamic Spain. Likewise the hotter spices and spicier condiments. The Moors were also the first to crystallize sugar (which they also brought to Europe).

L is for latte
As you sip one of those wimpy, froufrou confections in Starbucks, think about this: Arabica. Yes, the humble coffee bean. First cultivated and brewed as rocket fuel by Yemeni tribesman way back when -- though it's disputed whether the beans were transplanted from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to the Arabian Peninsula or whether it was the other way around. As an afterthought, we might not now have this plague of Starbucks and chi-chi cafes were it not for the Ottoman Turks, the Viennese getting the clever idea of the coffeehouse from them in the late 17th century.

M is for mosque
Funny, thinking about what Oriana Fallaci said earlier, the architectural flourish commonly attributed to the Moors, the curved arch, was actually copied from the Visigoths in Spain. Byzantine art and architecture, above all the Hagia Sophia in what was then Constantinople, had a profound influence on Islamic builders and artisans. However, it's the humble church steeple (via the mighty cathedral tower) that has an Islamic antecedent, the minaret.

N is for navigation
Without Arabian improvements upon the compass, the astrolabe, nautical maps and seaworthy lanterns, Magellan, Cabot, Vasco da Gama, Columbus, et al., might have had trouble pulling anchor and leaving port. The Arabs also pioneered the usage of hydraulic presses and water clocks, which tracked the passage of time and phases of the moon.

O is for optics
The concept of camera obscura, which is indispensable to the later development of photography, was first suggested in "The Treatise on Optics," by Hassan Ali Aitan (963-1009).

P is for paradise
Consider the varieties of roses -- the damask and the gallica, to name the two most common -- brought to Europe through Spain and Southern Italy by the Moor. Perhaps a rose is a rose is a rose, but what signifies here is where they're planted, and to Islamic sages and poets, gardens were symbolic of the paradise to come, a "blue green" paradise, blue for water, naturally, and green for greenery. The word "paradise" is of Persian origin ("paradaeza"); it literally means garden. Paradise as a garden or pleasure ground with swaying houris (heavenly handmaidens), the one that's promised to good male Muslims, figures heavily in the Quran, in contrast to Genesis where the Garden of Eden is a paradise lost. (And there are no houris in the Old Testament and definitely none in the New; is it any wonder Islam won so many converts?)

Q is for Qasim
Can you name the mystical Sufi poet who inspired Spiritual Girl Madonna to whirl like a dervish in "Speed of Light"? The one who is beloved by Demi Moore, quoted by Deepak Chopra and read by New Age ninnies from Beverly Hills to Notting Hill? (None of this, incidentally, should be held against him.) A Persian of Greek descent, who's up there in the Persian pantheon with Attar, Firdausi, Hafiz, Khayyam and Sadi? OK, OK, you know already: It's Jalad'din , but actually before him there was another, more carnal Rumi. Ibn al-Rumi (836-896) was an expansive, unforgettable, larger than life figure, Walt Whitman and Dylan Thomas rolled into one. He was magnificently ugly, unkempt and unwashed, pugnacious and ferociously sarcastic ("Those who kiss ass shouldn't complain of wind"), promiscuous, gluttonous, bibulous, blasphemous and irredeemably bohemian -- and he wondered why he couldn't get a position at court. And Qasim, you ask? He was the Caliph's vizier, who, fearful of the poet's wicked tongue, graciously poisoned him at supper. Rumi, though, had the last laugh. Upon quaffing the fatal potion and having a good burp, Rumi rose to leave. Qasim asked where he was off to, and Rumi replied he was going where the vizier had sent him. "In that case, convey my greetings to my father," Qasim said, thinking himself very witty. "I am not going to the fires of hell," Rumi replied. (Well, I needed something for Q.)

R is for religious tolerance and racial equality
Yes, hard as that might be for some to believe, Islam was the first major religion, certainly the first monotheistic one, to practice religious tolerance. Not that Muslim tribesmen didn't put to the sword those who refused to convert -- they committed their fair share of well-documented massacres early on -- but military success came so swiftly to them and on such a vast scale, that they found themselves burdened with an empire, and needed all the help they could get from their cleverer subjects to run it. They were, after all, warriors, not administrators. As rulers they were lenient, even generous (unlike the Germanic tribes that ravaged the late Roman Empire). Besides, Jews and Christians were "People of the Book" -- Islam borrowed much from its elders; Abraham, Moses and Christ are recognized prophets in the Koran -- and as long as they paid their tithe to the Caliph and kept out of trouble, they were free to do as they wished (the Zoroastrians in Persia were treated in similar fashion). "Holy Toledo," the meeting point of the three great religions, became a model of religious tolerance and harmony -- an idyll that ended when the Christian kings of the north recaptured it in 1085. (Until the rise of Holland in the 17th century, if you were Jewish it was generally better for your overall health and well-being to live in Muslim lands such as North Africa, the Levant or Turkey than almost anywhere in Christendom, particularly those places where Catholicism prevailed. French missionaries are to blame for introducing the virus of anti-Semitism to the Middle East in the 19th century.) Of the three great thinkers who flourished under Islamic rule, one was non-Muslim, Maimonides of Cordoba (1135-1204), author of "The Guide for the Perplexed," who was Jewish. Like Avicenna and his fellow Cordoban, Averroes, Maimonides attempted to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with religious belief. He died in Alexandria, where he founded the great synagogue.

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