How would the Ancient Greeks be remembered in a less western-dominated world?

I'm thinking in a The years of Rice and Salt scenario, but less ASB.

Let´s say, for some reson, Europe never rises up from the low standart of living it had in the VIII century AD. Arab armies conquer Spain and Southern France, maybe also Constantinople (as you wish) but for some reason (that's not the point I'd like to treat here) Western Europe remains a mess: extremely divided, constantly menaced by "Pagans" in the North and West and "Moors" in the South, and without any sustained form progress ....for centuries and centuries.

In this ATL, the most developped parts of the world are situated somewhere between Bagdad and Samarkand. Eventually, Malians and Morrocans or Japanese/Chinese discover America, and start colonizing it. At some point, they' are strong enough to conquer Europe or to vasalize it, and assimilate their people their civilization (but maybe not to theire religion).

What would the people of this TL around 1900 or 2000 have of the Anciant Greeks? Would they have such a high opinion of them as much as europeans from the XIX century did? Would this *Arab world civilization consider them their ancestors, as Western Europeans did IOTL? Or would they just ignore them? Would there be something similar to the idea that there are substantial differences, culturaly speaking, between East and West, and that, somehow Ancient Greeks @ Modern Europeans and Ancient Persia @ Arabs/Turks/whoever's Europe's enemy of the day?

And what about *chinese? And, what about *Indians (after all, there were Greeks in India at some point)?
 
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They would still have a massive impact on the Islamic and Far Eastern civilizations, but would most likely be considered the highpoint of European Civilization-alot like the Mongols were for Mongolia.
 
They would still have a massive impact on the Islamic and Far Eastern civilizations, but would most likely be considered the highpoint of European Civilization-alot like the Mongols were for Mongolia.

Would they? I understand it for the Chinese. For them, they might be a bit like the Mayans for us: they might admire them for their ingenuity and achievments, but they would see them as clearly alien.

But I'm not sure about this ATL Arabs. After all, Arabia is not, geographically speaking, farther from Greece than Paris or the Rhinland were. And the Arabs would have, as IOTL, conquered lands once held by the Ancient Greeks. They would also translate the books of greek philosophers into Arabias, as they did IOTL. Without a strong West who reivindicates the Greeks as their own ancestors, might not the arabs do so?

After all, the Westerns, at least in the early XX century, considered themselves cultural heirs of two traditions: the Hellenic one and the Semitic one (via Christianity). None of them had arrisen in the lands where modern western civiliazation had began to flourish in the Early Middle Ages (In Northern France, Western germany and England). So there are no reasons why this ATL Arabs may consider themselve cultural heirs of the Ancient Greeks if they wanted to. But... would they want to?
 
They'd still be remembered for a lot of their works in the mathematics.

On the other hand, they might be derided for their lack of emphasis on empiricism, which dominated contemporary Eastern philosophy in terms of science.
 
The Arabs DID consider themselves heir to the Greek and Roman cultural traditions, in addition to the Semitic and Persian traditions (also the Indian one, but to a lesser extent). In an Islam-dominated world the Greeks would still hold a lofty position, with the Islamic world seeing itself as Greece's inheritor.
 

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Well, if you have, lets say a Europe where, by the time of early modernity, Spain and Southern France and the Balkans are Islamic states, and maybe Eastern Europe and Central Europe got conquered by the Mongols for a while and Germany, Poland etc. are Muscovy style backwater autocracies, most Europeans would probably have no idea who Aristotle or Plato even is, since classical education would be limited and the Renaissance stifled in Christian Europe. Quite probably the Islamic emirates or caliphates in Greece, Aquitania would have Greek learning preserved to some extent, but see it as the valuable wisdom and arcane knowledge of a vanished pagan civilization that they are the intellectual and territorial successors of, but in an abstract way. Sort of like how a modern Protestant sees themself as a heir of the early Church. In reality, its two disconnected movements, one inspired by the other, but they're two different animals due to different circumstances.
 
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