المستخلص: |
Experts believe that while Hellenistic and Byzantine, influences shaped the culture of the Mediterranean countries before the advent of Islam, it was the Chinese influence, which left its imprint on the Near eastern countries. It would be idle to pretend that the tribal and nomadic population of Arabia living: in the inhospitable desert desolations could have developed any significant material or architectural culture. Nevertheless, once the new faith was well established in the Mediterranean basin and the Near east the newly emerging cultural blend exhibited a remarkable capacity to absorb, assimilate, develop and transmit the then existing norms of culture drawn both from the east as well as the west.
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