These great scientists operated within a Christian framework. An interesting fact is that the vast majority of all scientific development has come out of western civilization, which has Christianity as its basis. Christianity views God as rational and trustworthy, which implies that His creation is rational and orderly and thus can be examined. The idea of laws of nature came from Christianity. The essence of those religions is that the physical world has no reality.
Scientific inquiry requires the assumption that the world is real.
Nor could science have begun in the Muslim world because that worldview is dominated by fatalism, and fatalism is antithetical to the concept of progress. Misconceptions about the Bible have been around for a long time. For example, one misconception is that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. A closer examination of Scripture shows otherwise. The Bible's usage obviously refers to the four directions as measured from the particular focal point of interest and is the standard convention used in surveying and mapping to this day.