The attention in the West, especially in the United States, now accorded Islam and those who conduct themselves according to its precepts betrays woeful ignorance of both. As Graham Fuller has persuasively argued in his recent book, "A World Without Islam", Western culture owes much to Islam as well as to Muslims and would be greatly impoverished had Islam never come to be or were it to pass away. The riches lost would derive as much from the religion as from the civilization to which it has given rise. This article considers both, the emphasis being on Islam and its genesis and development as part and parcel of a larger Arabic cultural tradition. (Contains 14 footnotes.)