<P> Carpets of Middle - Eastern origin, either from the Ottoman Empire, the Levant or the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were a significant sign of wealth and luxury in Europe, as demonstrated by their frequent occurrence as important decorative features in paintings from the 13th century and continuing into the Baroque period . Such carpets, together with Pseudo-Kufic script offer an interesting example of the integration of Eastern elements into European painting, most particularly those depicting religious subjects . </P> <P> A number of musical instruments used in European music were influenced by Arabic musical instruments, including the rebec (ancestor of the violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, the naker from naqareh and the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al - zurna . </P> <P> There are many different theories regarding the origins of the troubadour tradition; one of the most commonly held theories is that it had Arabic origins . William of Aquitaine, the first troubadour whose work survives, had extensive contact with the Islamic world in the Crusade of 1101 and in the Reconquista in Spain (where he was given a rock crystal vase by a Muslim ally). In his study, Lévi - Provençal is said to have found four Arabo - Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William's manuscript . According to historic sources, William VIII, the father of William IX, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim prisoners . The hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the Reconquista in Spain was championed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in the early 20th century, but its origins go back as far as Giammaria Barbieri in the 16th century . Certainly "a body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism (existed) in Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards ." </P> <P> A number of technologies in the Islamic world were adopted in European medieval technology . These included various crops; various astronomical instruments, including the Greek astrolabe which Arab astronomers developed and refined into such instruments as the Quadrans Vetus, a universal horary quadrant which could be used for any latitude, and the Saphaea, a universal astrolabe invented by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al - Zarqālī; the astronomical sextant; various surgical instruments, including refinements on older forms and completely new inventions; and advanced gearing in waterclocks and automata . Distillation was known to the Greeks and Romans, but was rediscovered in medieval Europe through the Arabs . The word alcohol (to describe the liquid produced by distillation) comes from Arabic al - kuhl . The word alembic (via the Greek Ambix) comes from Arabic al - anbiq . Islamic examples of complex water clocks and automata are believed to have strongly influenced the European craftsmen who produced the first mechanical clocks in the 13th century . </P>

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