Did Muslims really invent the things President Obama mentioned in his Cairo speech?

Answer 1

No, The compass and Printing were both invented by the Chinese, the Pen was invented by the Ancient Egyptians and Algebra was invented by the Babylonians, all prior to the birth of Muhammad. Clarification: The President's speechwriters were led astray by some common misunderstandings, and blew the printing part altogether.

In the 14th century, the Syrian astronomer and timekeeper Ibn al-Shatir (1304-1375) invented the compass dial, a timekeeping device incorporating both a universal sundial and a magnetic compass. He invented it for the purpose of finding the direction to Mecca and the times of Salah prayers at the Umayyad Mosque. Arab navigators also introduced the 32-point compass rose during this time. The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen dates back to the 10th century. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary action. Although the first algebraic calculations were made by the ancient Babylonians, and were known by the Greeks, Arab and Muslim mathematicians developed algebraic methods to a much higher degree of sophistication. Although Diophantus and the Babylonians used mostly special ad hoc methods to solve equations, Al-Khowarazmi was the first to solve equations using general methods. He solved the linear indeterminate equations, quadratic equations, second order indeterminate equations and equations with multiple variable. The word "algorithm", meaning a systematic method for solving a problem, is derived from his name.