Islamic Caliphate (Umayyad)

The Umayyad Caliphate at its peak in 750 AD stretched from the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) across North Africa, through the Middle East and Persia to Central Asia — one of the largest empires ever assembled in a single century of expansion following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. It preserved and transmitted Greek scientific and philosophical knowledge that Europe had lost, directly enabling the European Renaissance.