George Michael Wickens

George Michael Wickens (1918-2006) was a distinguished Canadian-British Persianist as well as Arabist, translator and a University lecturer.

Quotes

• In the broadest sense, the west's borrowings from the Middle East form practically the whole basic fabric of civilisation. Without such fundamental borrowings from the Middle East, we should lack the following sorts of things among others (unless, of course, we had been quick and inventive enough to devise them all for ourselves): agriculture,‘ the domestication of animals, for food, clothing and transportation; spinning and weaving,‘ building; drainage and irrigation; road- making and the wheel; metal—working, and standard tools and weapons of all kinds; sailing ships; astronomical observation and the calendar; writing and the keeping of records; laws and civic life; coinage; abstract thought and mathematics; most of our religious ideas and symbols. there is virtually no evidence for any of these basic things and processes and ideas being actually invented in the West.
  • What the west borrowed from Middle East, in introduction to Islamic Civilization, pp: 120-5, p: 120