Beyond Invasion: the Bāb اب َ ار the in ب َ د Dār, or rather, the Door in the Land. Islam as the Door to the Portuguese Age of Discoveries

sing as a springboard the countless contributions to the sciences brought by Muslims to the Iberian Peninsula—present-day Portugal and Spain—southern France (i.e., Provence), Sardinia, Sicily and the rest of southern Italy, as well as other parts of the Mediterranean basin area, in this paper I concentrate on the key role that Muslim scholars, more often than not assisted by their Sephardic Jewish counterparts,1 had in training the scientific researchers of the then-burgeoning young Portuguese nation (1143), thus opening the door (bāb ابَت (to the Portuguese Age of Discoveries and Expansion Overseas (1415), as well as to the Modern Era (1453-1789)