We shall view the achievements of medieval Islamic mathematics from the point of view of two questions: "What was (and wasn't) Islamic about it?" and "What does the term `mathematics' mean when used to describe the results of its practitioners?". We shall present evidence suggesting that it is only in the context of the Islamic faith interacting with the mathematical heritage from older civilizations that we can gain a full picture of mathematics in medieval Islam. In the course of providing some answers to our questions, we will look at some examples of Islamic achievements, both practical and theoretical, in such areas as arithmetic, algebra and geometry.

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