If the proverbial frog under its coconut shell seems stupid because of its pride, knowledge under a coconut shell is doomed to die. In the mid-ninth century in Baghdad, Al-Kindi emphasized the rejection of such protective narrow-mindedness: "We must not be ashamed to admire the truth or to acquire it, from wherever it comes. Even if it should come from far-flung nations and foreign peoples..."

Actually, it is interesting that he needed to stress thi