For several hundred years (~ 800AD - 1500AD) the Islamic world was at the [[http://www.globalcomment.com/v2/sci13.asp | forefront of medical knowledge and technology]] with great medical scholars such as [[wp>Avicenna]] and [[wp>Rhazes]] - part of a greater [[wp>Islamic Golden Age]] in sciences and arts (~ 9th - 13th Centuries AD) . Within the past 500 years however, there has been a [[http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_8/49_1.shtml |decline in science and technology in the Islamic world ]].