A thing to also keep in mind about the "medieval" time-period is that things probably were not all that consistent. The Arab states and the Byzantines made great use of fire-based weapons in Greek Fire (zealously guarded by the Byzantine Emperors until the formulea got lost in the constant military coups) and the Arabs made use of Naphtha (which is still around today as a paint thinner, FYI). And by direct competition to the Greek Emperor the Arabs even invented fire-proof clothing to help guard themselves against Byzantine Fire, or their own fire-bombs.
Across the steppe and on into China we have gunpowder and many of its associations (mines, rockets, early guns), mechanically repeating crossbows, and so much other shit.
Europe's conditions were hardly capable of supporting a strong technical base on account to the entire continent being presided over by near constant war between either minor lordlings or Kings vs King. And the entire landscape being presided over by warrior kings there was hardly any interest in technological development or even the most remote progressiveness. They liked to throw the peasants onto each other to enforce their own claims, and the eb and tide of war matched the shift of seasons more so than not.
The Greeks and the Arabs probably maintained the most societal or technological advancement. The Byzantines were sort of a weird thing. In a book I'm reading on them and their contributions to the world the author makes note that even as Byzantine politics collapsed inwards the inteligesta were more than willing to expand and keep alive the ancient Greek Works (after recovering from a centuries long falling out at the hand of Justinian when he closed the Academy of Plato and the "pagans" and basically cast them all out into the Arab world). Although this itself ultimately died in the 14th century when the political collapse of the Byzantines reached such a head that it created popular fear and people turned to religious orthodoxy (more to Hesychasm, or the religious art of staring at your belly button in meditation) so all the academics had to go silent or they fled to Italy and founded proto-humanism.
On the other hand in West Africa, the Eurasian steppe/Ukraine/Tartaria things would have been considerably more tribal. By extension perhaps some regions in present-day Ethiopia outside of Axum and Gondar and Saharan Africa. These areas would have much resembled what they were irregardless of Europe. Mali itself has been rather consistently a couple centuries behind until Europe.
And then I finished rambling.
