Al-Andalus moment

Explanation: While much of Christian Europe was splintered and only beginning to recover from the immense civilizational collapse of the Roman Empire, the Islamic Golden Age was flourishing, bringing new organizational and material technologies to Muslim-ruled societies. It was not all sunshine and rainbows, but the writings of contemporaries show that it was more than just abstract academic knowledge - a broader culture of public works and public good managed to take root and improve the living conditions of many, especially in the cities.

Much of antiquity, even, was transferred to Western Europe by Arabic translations of Greek and Latin works - scholarship of the Islamic golden age had become much more developed than the still-recovering societies of Western Europe, which only began to regain some measure of parity with the Muslim world in the 1300s.