Paper has had a good run of about 1260 years, since the Abbasids first stole the secret from the Chinese and spread it around the world after the Battle of Talas in 751 AD.

FORBES: The End of Pax Papyra and the Fall of Big Paper

The route takes the visitor through the spread of Islam from Arab Lands and Iran under the Umayyads and Abbasids (seventh to 13th centuries) all the way to Later South Asia (16th to 20th centuries).

ECONOMIST: Islamic galleries at the Met

Muslim rulers, from the Abbasids in the eighth century to the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and the Ottomans, developed the institution of military slavery to lessen nepotism and the internal conflicts created by tribal loyalties.

ECONOMIST: Theories of history