Centuries before Renaissance men such as da Vinci experimented with light, optics, or even aeronautics, Muslim thinkers across the extensive Arab Empire developed the foundations of technology that in some instances wouldn’t be explored or fulfilled again until the twentieth century. Muslim thinking and innovation throughout the Arab Empire was, in many ways, a strong foundation of the Renaissance in Europe, via cultural, ambassadorial, and commercial routes across the continent and beginning with Italy. Italy was particularly receptive to such thinking as it entered into the period of classical revival that looked to the knowledge of the Roman Empire for inspiration. The Renaissance throughout Europe would closely resemble Italy, but Italy would ultimately prove to be in the ideal geographical position to welcome the imported Muslim culture.

The remarkable innovations of Muslim thinkers such as Ibn al-Haytham and Abbas ibn Firnas are startling for their time. In A.D. 875 in Córdoba, at the farthest extent of the Arab Empire in present-day Spain, ibn Firnas successfully experimented with a wood, silk, and feather flying apparatus and was airborne for a number of minutes. Ibn Firnas had further experimented in mechanics, time, and, astronomy but, like much of the scientific exploration of the early Muslims, such “intellectual heresy” was often lost to history (Morgan 2007). Ibn al-Haytham, however, was one who published volumes of his work that would eventually be translated into Latin in the thirteenth century. These translations would become readily available to scholars in Italy. For al-Haytham, the world could not be understood philosophically, but it could be measured. Remarkably, he nearly determined the thickness of the earth’s atmosphere and almost articulated the physical concept of gravity. Moreover, he identified the linear quality of light and built an object very much like a camera obscura to help demonstrate it. It would be more than five centuries before the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, and Newton would replicate and then build upon al-Haytham's foundational work (Morgan 2007). Renaissance revisionist historians, on the heels of European fear of the Arab Empire, easily rewrote the Renaissance without acknowledging the golden ages of Muslim power, religion, and intellect. Yet, their indelible impression cannot be overlooked. (Morgan 2007)