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.
Cults are not religions. A religion demands reason, rationality, thinking, faith, acts of morality, and it frees the individual from slavery, from iniquity, from sinful acts, from barbarism. Evolution is a sci-fi cult which teaches that walking fish became human. Since you are nothing more than an animal, might is right, there is no morality and all actions relatively considered, are fine. This savage theology informs Atheism, and the illiterate fascist cults of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and other 'worthies' who were fanatical evolutionists. Why not kill Slavs, Gypsies, Jews and Christians if that helps 'clean' the genes ?
Islam is little different than evolution in its hatred of the non-Moslem human. Moslems or those inside the cult who follow Muhammad [history's perfect man apparently]; and the ravings of the Koran [revealed by the moon deity Al-Lah to Muhammad apparently]; are good fellows. Be nice to them. Help them. Give them money and aid. Those outside the cult however, are demonized. Satanic, evil, greedy, lecherous, stupid, doomed, little more than donkeys or apes to quote the Koran; these untermenschen must be killed, humiliated, crucified or executed to quote Sura 5:33. Nothing expresses a cult mentality quite like the Koran. It is of course the basest, the crudest, the most fundamentalist expression of a cult in man's history, surpassing Mein Kampf.
“The Qur'an tells us: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (5:51), "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191), "murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123), "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5). The Qur'an demands that we fight the unbelievers, and promises "If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them" (8:65).” [link]
It is clear that Islam is premised on millennia-old moon worship. The only real debate is whether the Al-Lah or Lord was a masculine moon deity or a feminine. This is hardly worth arguing about. The evidence points quite strongly that over time Al-Lah became a masculine idol and the Sun goddess Al-Lat who might have been either his consort or daughter, was the feminine. It matters not. The important fact lies in the paganism which is at the heart of Islam. Arab paganism, an outgrowth of Bronze age ideals, is the root and core of the cult of Submission – its very name is quite instructive. Submit – deny yourself free-will, deny yourself freedom, blindly follow, shut up and obey, Muhammad knows best, the Al-Lah idol or his family idol, said so.
Walker The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets has this to say:
"Late Islamic masculinization of the Arabian Goddess, Al-Lat or Al-Ilat—the Allatu of the Babylonians—formerly worshipped at the Kaaba in Mecca. It has been shown that 'the Allah of Islam' was a male transformation of 'the primitive lunar deity of Arabia.' Her ancient symbol the crescent moon still appears on Islamic flags, even though modern Moslems no longer admit any feminine symbolism whatever connected with the wholly patriarchal Allah."
And Theodor Reik in his Pagan Rites in Judaism. states, in a chapter called "The ancient Semitic moon-goddess":
"All Semites had once a cult of the moon as supreme power. When Mohammed overthrew the old religion of Arabia, he did not dare get rid of the moon cult in a radical manner. Only much later was he powerful enough to forbid prostration before the moon (Koran Sure 4:37). Before Islamic times the moon deity was the most prominent object of cults in ancient Arabia. Arab women still insist that the moon is the parent of mankind.
Muhammad became powerful through war and murder. He conquered Mecca after slaughtering Jewish, Christian and pagan Arab tribes over an 8 year period. He was no prophet of peace, but a general of carnage, totalitarianism, and intolerance. Gone were the many idols worshipped by the Semites and pagan Arabs. Installed was the only idol to be tolerated, which quite conveniently for Muhammad, was not only his family idol, but the only free will force in the universe. If you read the Koran you will notice not only the supremacism and racism which abounds on every page, superseded only by violence against non-Moslems; but you will also divine the blaring trumpet of Allah, who repeats ad-nauseum that only he has free-will. Denying free-will and choice is a hallmark of cults.