I think it is for the same reasons that Islam was such a tremendously empowering force for its followers prosperity in the Middle Ages. But what about Avicenna

I think it is for the same reasons that Islam was such a tremendously empowering force for its followers prosperity in the Middle Ages. But what about Avicenna and others who translated and propagated Aristotelian and other Greek ideas? This was done in a period before a religious consolidation of sorts, wherein these ideas faded in the Islamic world. (Incidentally, Avicenna's work was the route through which Thomas Aquinas was exposed to Aristotle, which set off a chain of philosophical progress that spanned several centuries, eventually culminating in the Enlightenment.)