The arabic world was decimated by the Mongol invasions though, and the Islamic Golden Age was put to the sword. The reason they were reading 400 year old texts and not modern contemporary ones is because of this.
Honestly, the mountain ranges that held the mongols back from taking Europe and kept them relatively safe are a large part of the reason why Europe was able to catch back up.
By the way, it's also a myth that Mongols were technologically backwards. They were at the very, very start before they took over chunks of China and incorporated their technology. The mongols were extremely adaptable, and by the end of their conquests they were using the most advanced siege weaponry on Earth.
mongols were still expanding westward until they hit the carpathians and caucuses, and even sent some expeditionary scouting parties through and found there wasn't enough grass to sustain their horses and the land was too poor and backwards to bother with. One of their scouting parties nearly defeated a European army on its own and the Europeans thought they beat the Mongols for good but it was just a small detatchment
They made it as far west as Bulgaria and the Carpathian mountains, and could have easily continued had it been worth it and had there not been annoying choke-points and bottlenecks and rugged terrain - eventually the Mongols did take Bulgaria, but as I was saying, the mountainous terrain in this region is really what walled them off and led to them being ambushed and defeated at higher rates, and reduced the effectiveness and mobility of their armies.
The arabic world was decimated by the Mongol invasions though, and the Islamic Golden Age was put to the sword. The reason they were reading 400 year old texts and not modern contemporary ones is because of this.
Honestly, the mountain ranges that held the mongols back from taking Europe and kept them relatively safe are a large part of the reason why Europe was able to catch back up.
By the way, it's also a myth that Mongols were technologically backwards. They were at the very, very start before they took over chunks of China and incorporated their technology. The mongols were extremely adaptable, and by the end of their conquests they were using the most advanced siege weaponry on Earth.
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mongols were still expanding westward until they hit the carpathians and caucuses, and even sent some expeditionary scouting parties through and found there wasn't enough grass to sustain their horses and the land was too poor and backwards to bother with. One of their scouting parties nearly defeated a European army on its own and the Europeans thought they beat the Mongols for good but it was just a small detatchment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Samara_Bend
They made it as far west as Bulgaria and the Carpathian mountains, and could have easily continued had it been worth it and had there not been annoying choke-points and bottlenecks and rugged terrain - eventually the Mongols did take Bulgaria, but as I was saying, the mountainous terrain in this region is really what walled them off and led to them being ambushed and defeated at higher rates, and reduced the effectiveness and mobility of their armies.