What's the importance of Islam arising outside the Roman empire? It seems to me that to consider Islam outside the history of western civilization you must firs

What's the importance of Islam arising outside the Roman empire? It seems to me that to consider Islam outside the history of western civilization you must first define western civilization with that result in mind. It's tautological. For the first couple of centuries the spread of Christianity was also largely outside the Roman empire. Both Ethiopia and Armenia officially became Christian nations before Rome did (and both had become majority Christians earlier, meaning even earlier than the Roman empire itself.) Some Islamic practices, such as praying 5 times a day, were likely adopted from Christian practices (Protestants, and these days many Catholics, have largely forgotten the Liturgy of the Hours, but it was a widespread practice among Christians, and in Arabia in particular among lay Christians, not just clergy, who would lay down a rug, even in public, to perform their prayers). Do these facts somehow suggest a broken connection between Christianity and western civilization prior to it becoming widespread in Europe? At least until the 11th century, Muslim empires considered themselves inheritors of Greek intellectual culture. This at a time when Europeans had lost Greek literature and even the Greek language (Rome literally started to have trouble conversing with Constantinople centuries earlier). Europeans seem to consider Islamic civilization as a mere temporary steward of Greek culture, conveniently keeping its literature extant until it could be rightly restored to Europeans. Yes, the shared western cultural heritage in Mongolia itself is now extremely attenuated. But that's much less true in Persia or other areas closer to the epicenter of western civilization--i.e. the Levant--some of which are closer, geographically and otherwise, than most of continental Europe, especially Western Europe. Europeans have a bias when it comes to their inheritance--they only see the historical paths that lead to themselves. (This is a universal truism that applies to every culture.) But there were many other branches from the same origins, and other cultures only see the paths that led to their selves. Until recently North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia had their own memories of a Greek cultural heritage, albeit intermixed with other influences (as is the case with Europeans). But unfortunately the predominance of modern European culture and historical narratives, and tacit internationalization of a unique European claim, seems to have erased that memory. But the heritage exists nonetheless and can be reclaimed, the same way Europeans reclaimed their Greek cultural heritage in the late Middle Ages.