Text:Map: The vast Muslim world was wonderful for the growth of knowledge. The Greeks had developed a level of practical experie
nce and technical understanding a thousand years more advanced than anyone else nearby. The Muslims began to translate some of these ancient Greek texts. From India, Muslims learned of the zero, which allowed them to invent what we still call "Arabic" numerals. And because the Koran, the sacred book of Islam, is written in Arabic, scholars throughout the Muslim world learned to read Arabic and to share their knowledge. The Muslims swept past Jundi Shapur and learned the secrets of sugar. As they conquered lands around the Mediterranean Sea, they spread word of how to grow, mill, and refine the sweet reed. –Sugar Changed the World, Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos How does the map develop the central idea of the passage? It provides a visual representation of lands conquered by Muslims. It shows the regions that benefited from Muslims’ knowledge of sugar. It illustrates how the growth and refining of sugar led to Muslim conquests. It demonstrates that Muslims grew sugar outside of the Mediterranean.
The theme of "The Wretched and the Beautiful" is the plight of refugees. Seeking refuge is given a fictional slant by the fact that the refugees in this story are aliens, who have arrived amid a group of holidaymakers.
