Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was superior to anything Islam had developed. Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam. Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions. Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'. Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.
A cult document lays out the cult's Golden Rule which is 'us versus the rest'. The only Golden Rule in the Koran is that the cult of the moon deity, al-ilah, and its human leader Muhammad, must rule the earth. The Koranic idea of the Golden Rule is simply that the cult of submission, and its adherents are superior and if they follow the 'Golden Rule' of submission to Allah [who is the same as Muhammad], earthly power and heavenly paradise will be theirs. Period. This is of course supremacism and is the opposite of the Christian ideal of the immanent, or universal Golden Rule.
Every Medinan Sura, which abrogates earlier Meccan Suras, is supremacist. There is no disputation about that fact. Even many of the shorter Meccan Suras, uttered by the politician and future terrorist Muhammad from a position of weakness [he only had a few dozen followers in his early ministry], clearly demarcate the world into two halves, the believers or the 'just' and the unbelievers or 'hypocrites' and 'unclean'. Sura 87 illustrates the above truism. It contains 5 essential themes, which are repeated throughout the Koran ad nauseum:
Allah rules and is the only 'thing' in the universe with free will. Line 7 – 'Except as Allah wills. For He knoweth what is manifest and what is hidden.' In other words Allah can will you to believe, will you to follow, or even will you to disbelief, to be punished and eventually burnt in Hell. Allah is the only life force who has will.
The cult rules and is uber alles. Line 8 states, 'We [the Moslems] will make it easy for thee (to follow) the simple (Path).' Make it easy indeed. If you join the cult and try to leave the Moslems will kill you. If you join the cult and stay you have to follow all of the rules. If you join the cult and the leadership decides to wage Jihad and plunder, rape and kill the Infidel, you better join in.
Unbelievers are doomed. Lines 11 and 12 are pretty clear, 'But it will be avoided [the cult that is] by those most unfortunate ones. Who will enter the Great Fire.” Hell is full of endless torment in which those who reject the cult, '...will then neither die nor live' [87:13].
Believers will go to the Moslem paradise. Line 17 promises this enduring and wonderful world to the cult followers of Muhammad.
The Koran is built upon and replaces the 'Books' of Moses and Christianity. The Koran is an illiterate misinterpretation and extraction of much of the Torah or its stories and parables. It also pilfers much in the New Testament, oftentimes getting the story wrong and misrepresenting what the Christian book states. As well quite weirdly, all Jewish and Christian leaders and 'prophets' were actually Moslem [since all people including Adam and Eve were and are born Moslem......]. Jesus is thus a Muhammadan preacher even though he lived and died some 580 years before Islam was invented. How rational of the Moslems. They are trying to conflate the old monotheisms with Islam of course. It is quite sad that anyone in the modern world would believe this to be either historically accurate or remotely reasonable as a claim.
1 Glorify the name of thy Guardian-Lord Most High
2 Who hath created and further given order and proportion;
3 Who hath ordained laws. And granted guidance;
4 And Who bringeth out the (green and luscious) pasture.
5 And then doth make it (but) swarthy stubble.
6 By degrees shall We teach thee to declare (the Message) so thou shalt not forget
**Theme 1: 7 Except as Allah wills: For He knoweth what is manifest and what is hidden.
**Theme 2: 8 And We will make it easy for thee (to follow) the simple (Path).
9 Therefore give admonition in case the admonition profits (the hearer).
10 The admonition will be received by those who fear (Allah):
**Theme 3: 11 But it will be avoided by those most unfortunate ones.
12 Who will enter the Great Fire
13 In which they will then neither die nor live.
14 But those will prosper who purify themselves.
15 And glorify the name of their Guardian-Lord and (lift their hearts) in Prayer.
16 Nay (behold) ye prefer the life of this world;
**Theme 4: 17 But the Hereafter is better and more enduring.
18 And this is in the Books of the earliest (Revelations)
**Theme 5: 19 The Books of Abraham and Moses.
These 5 claims and themes denote a cult not a religion. There is no ethical or 'religious' methodology here. Nor is there even an attempt at constructing a program of rational morality. The Koran stole much of its content from Judaic-Christian theology, and fastened onto it, pagan Arabian practices expressed in the worship of the moon deity Al-Lah who is in the Koran, the same as Muhammad. Muhammad might have been insane [he certainly suffered from epilepsy], but in the creation of his cult he displays a cunning genius along the same lines as that expressed by Chinghis Khan and his Mongol horde, in which Chinghis became the manifestation and the direct divine contact with the 'Sky God'. Thus conflated we have the 'great-man' and leader merged with the divine.
[Note: This sura is taken from 'The Holy Quran', translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, reprinted in 1995, Goodword Books. Regarded as one of the best translations from Arabic to English of the Koran.]