What can be described as “Western Civilization” is a much bigger cultural zone than we define it. Historically people also never really divided the world this way. It’s just modern academics that screw these concepts up completely, have obvious agendas and lack context. Europe, North Africa and Middle East are all part of “The West”. The regions were only ever divided at various times by empires, language groups and religions. The author of this article is disingenuous with their argument at its core as a result. Musical traditions from Baghdad are still western. This is why music could influence other music because these were all western musical styles.
Edit: Wanted to add that the alphabet is a western linguistic concept that’s common to all western languages.
Edit: Wanted to add that the alphabet is a western linguistic concept that’s common to all western languages.