Re: Monasteries had it right centuries ago
They preserved moslty the "civilization" that matched their religious ideology. What didn't match, was also destroyed and lost (read, for example "The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World" by Catherine Nixey) - and had to be rediscovered later.
A lot of art and knowledge has been destroyed by Christians too - every religion tries to wipe out what could be dangerous for its total obfuscation of people's mind to achieve power. Science, is usually the first victim (erotic books have more chances to survive - we know very well why, the Abbot may have liked some... to criticize them, of course)
It wasn't Muslims to start the destroying the Hellenistic knowledge - it was the the christian "talibans" of the era- many of them "monks", Muslims came some centuries later, and for a while ("The Golden Age"), they preserved it, they became also more advanced than Europe - and they have saved a lot of books, which were already "lost" by the "good civilized monks", and yes, Greek and Latin books had to be re-translated from Arabic (especially in Toledo).
Nevertheless, monasteries were imported from the Orient, with a far darker vision of Christianity, and, frankly, are a bad deviation from Christ teaching, he never say to hide behind walls, and exclude, but exactly the opposite. Penitence is not only flogging, you have a very old dark vision....
Sure, they became so large land owners, and owners of serfs ("poverty? Ah-ah!"), thus became so greedy, they had to improve their fields yield. But nobody really knows who introduced more modern form of rotations, and improved tools.
Metalworking, sorry, developed outside monasteries because it was essential for war. And still, Damascus steel was regarded the best of those times (and still, its manufacturing is now lost).
Unless you meant jewellery, because, yes, what's a Gospel value if not drowned into gold and precious stones? Yet "barbarians" jewel makers were already of very high quality and skills....
Most monks were not enlightened scholars.... especially in the early middle ages, and it was their religion to turn the clock centuries back - not forward.