From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them Published: 11 March 2006

1) Coffee
2) Pin-Hole Camera
3) Chess
4) Parachute
5) Shampoo
6) Refinement
7) Shaft
8) Metal Armor
9) Pointed Arch
10) Surgery
11) Windmill
12) Vaccination
13) Fountain Pen
14) Numerical Numbering
15) Soup
16) Carpets
17) Pay Cheques
18) Earth is in sphere shape!
19) Rocket and Torpedo
20) Gardens

1) Coffee

The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London.
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