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.
In his interesting monograph on civilization 'Science, Origins, & Ancient Civilizations', Gerry Burney quotes Dr. Morey on a truism about Islam :
“Islam is a modern version of one of the ancient fertility cults. The Allah of the Qur'an is not the same as the God of the Bible, and the religion of Abraham is not derived from paganism.” [p.126]
Islam is a theocratic poli-fascism, imbued with pagan antecedents. Allah was of course the moon deity, Hub'Al, a similar idol to the Sumerian/Babylonian Sin or moon god. As Barney goes on to quote other experts, the entire pantheon of Islam is rather ironically entirely pagan.
“Guilaume states, 'the other gods mentioned in the Qur'an are all female deities: Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, Manat, which represented the Sun, Venus and Fortune respectively...As Allah meant the god', so did Allat mean 'the goddess'.”
Muhammad's political deal with the Meccans was that they could worship Hubal's or Allah's daughters and thus keep their 'gods' as long as they understood however, that Allah or Hubal was the main god. This is the basis of the 'Satanic verses', erased from the Koran, made famous by Rushdie and an embarrassment to all Moslems. Muhammad's excuse was that the 'devil' had forced him to make such an arrangement. In any event it reveals the profound paganism which is the foundation of Islam.
Anyone who has studied Islamic and Arab history knows that the following found in Burney's book, is true:
“Moshay states, 'This is why Hubal the moon god (Sin), was the central focus of prayer at the Ka'aba , and the people prayed to Hubal (Sin), using the name Allah.”
Moon worship in Mecca, in the form of Hubal [Allah] predates Muhammad by 2500 years or more. Near Eastern moon-cult worship informed every single culture in the area. For the Arabs, the moon was the bringer of cool temperatures and relief. The Sun was viewed by most tribes as an enemy, often-times linked to evil. The Koran is very clear that the only 'correct' calendar is a lunar calendar, and not the Solar model of the Jews and Christians.
As Barney notes,
“The moon god Sin was common to many cultures all over the world, long before Muhammad, and can be traced all the way back to Nimrod, and Babylon - 2000 B.C. In Rome, Diana was the moon god (1000 years before Muhammad), the daughter of Jupiter...her symbol was the crescent moon. The moon god Sin (2.000 B.C.) commonly called by Arabs Hubal, was considered the highest of the gods, or Al-ilah.”
Moslems try to deny the obvious, but Allah is Hubal, and is thus the moon idol of the pagan Meccans. To make his political life easier Muhammad simply accepted all of the rites and rituals in place, observed by Meccans for centuries. He simply made Hubal or Allah the supreme god, and over time, both in Koranic writing and within Islamic liturgy, we see Hubal evolve into the only free-will, wrathful and bloodthirsty god of the main Suras, 9, 5, 2 and 4.