Early achievements attributed to Islam happened despite Islam

Submitted by Dave, May 10, 2019 at 09:04

In the interview here, early Islamic era achievements were lauded, such as the translations of Greek texts into Arabic, but they took place before Islam had thoroughly permeated the lands subjected to the Arab conquests. It was actually a good 150 years after the conquests before the Islamic religion was even invented as a means to justify those conquests and regulate the conquered people. It then took centuries in some cases, as in Turkey (1300 to 2000 in a linear progression), for Islam to become the religion of the overwhelming majority.

It was that lag that explains the early achievements and tolerance of Islamic countries. Initially, Muslims were only a small ruling elite. Thanks to economic and social pressure, as well as persecution, the populations eventually converted, often out of convenience.

Islam is a deeply anti-intellectual system, very hostile to other beliefs and ideologies. It took many years before the Islamic countries became thoroughly Islamic and entered the intellectual dead zone that they are in today.

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