What the professor says about the conquest of Toledo is not quite right.

It is true that Al Andalus (the muslim Iberia) was a big center of knowledge and scholarship, most notably the city of Córdoba in the time of the caliphs. During the reign of the great caliphs Abd al Rahman III and Al Hakam II, culture flourished in Córdoba, which attracted many scholars, cementing the reputation of the city as a center of knowledge: the most knowledgable intellectuals, be them christian, muslim, or jewish, gathered there under the protection of the caliphs: friar Nicolas, Hasday ibn Shaprut, Maslama of Mayrit, are all good examples of this. The caliphal library in the best days of the Caliphate has been estimated as having contained around 400,000 volumes, although other scholars give different figures like 100,000 volumes, and even as "low" as 40,000.

The knowledge from Córdoba, thanks to diplomatic contacts, irradiated to many other places in Hispania, with the monasteries of Albelda, San Millán de la Cogolla, and Ripoll, being the main recipients of those knowledges. From those places, the wisdoms from Córdoba spread across Europe. One very notable example comes to mind: Gerbert of Aurillac, who would become known as Pope Sylvester II, spent some time in the monastery of Ripoll studying and making copies of important works, which he helped spread to Europe.

The Caliphate, however, fell. The great muslim kingdom fell to internal divisions, and became fractured into over a dozen smaller kingdoms (known as taifas). The most important of those realms was the taifa of Toledo, which would be captured by king Alfonso VI of León in the year 1085. Part of the caliphal library was preserved in Toledo, but we do not know how large a share of Córdoba's library it represented. Alfonso, who styled himself "Emperor of the two religions", guaranteed the protection of the mosques in Toledo, as well the protection of the madrasa and its library.

The wider expansion of knowledge that flowed from Toledo came some 50 years later, with the impulse of archbishop Gundisalvo, who set up a school of translators that undertook the labour of translating into Latin the great books that were in Arabic, so they could be further copied by other scholars from all over Europe. This school of translators became an absolute success, and continued for over a century. Plenty of renowned scholars collaborated with the School of Translators, such as Adelard of Bath, Peter the Venerable, and most importantly Gerard of Cremona, who was responsible for the translation of 87 works.

The conquest of Toledo did not mean an immediate explosion of knowledge that spread from the city to the rest of Europe, it was a gradual thing over more than a century. Another important thing to note is that there were other repositories of culture, more notably in Byzantium, where the prior century the Souda had been compiled. Other such places of knowledge were the monasteries of Monte Cassino, in Italy, and a number of monasteries in Ireland.