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.
One of the great imperial projects of all time - Islam – has been an unmitigated failure. This bizarre and historically unnecessary imperialist venture, founded by a pagan moon worshiping people mired in superstition and desirous to emulate more successful Christians and Jews, has never produce one single item of value. The best that can be said of this Arab project is that when the pagan Arabs dominated the Eastern mediterranean they served as a conduit between East and West. But so too did the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries – hardly a point of acclamation.
Any temporal success Islam has ever enjoyed was due to the riches and benefits of lands and systems it conquered. An obvious but rarely mentioned reason for Islam's poverty is the political law and cult of submission. Islam is in many ways the perfect tool of state and imperial control. Submit, shut up, and serve is the Islamic motto.
There are many ways to account and view the failure of the Arab imperial project. Modern Islamic fascism which is now a world-wide phenomenon fueled by Saudi and Iranian money, extremist mosques, Western cowardice, and the Koran; is only the latest manifestation of what has been history's most bloodthirsty ideology. The Nazis started a war which killed 70 million. The Lenin-Stalin fascism murdered some 35 million. Mao did away with 30-50 million souls. But they are midgets compared to Islam. What was originally an Arab imperialist venture and which mutated into the conversions of Turks, Mongols, Iranians, Indians, and Africans, has butchered at least 300 million people since 622 A.D.
Pagan, uncultured , but fanatical Arabs first carried the Muslim banner from southern France through to China on an imperialist rampage overshadowing that of the Mongols under Chinghis Khan; or even the expansion of Russia from a poor Muslim dominated statelet to the largest land empire in human history. The original Arab project, premised on the Koran and its demand of submission to a state church, was quickly perceived by the the Turks, Persians, northern Indians and Sudanese as a perfect tool of conquest and control.
These converted pagans were even more ferocious in many ways in implementing the totality of Muslim governance than the pagan Arabs. Indeed both Turks and Persians still today look down upon Arabs as lazy, sex addled, liars and incompetents. The Arabs went from ferocious and mobile warriors to an effeminate, corrupt ruling class.
The usefulness of Islamic doctrine to centralise state control has to be true if one keeps in mind two critical aspects to Islamic success in conquering huge areas of the globe. First, poor, uncultured, and peripheral Arab tribes, once united behind a fanatical doctrine of universal domination were able to spread, subdue and manage an empire far larger than anything Rome could put together in just 150 years. A strong central state ideology is an obvious necessity to do this. Centralised state control naturally militates against freedom and in fact demands a limited scope of individual initiative and opportunity.
Second, many of the Arab conquests were against feebler nations, empires and princedoms, in which the Arabs were able to quickly demonstrate the benefits of centralised Muslim rule for local elites, or to various factions which were weakening the targeted state in question. The Arabs could offer ambitious war-lords, or precariously perched princes a more complete system of state control. Islam is after all in every way a 'total' concept – one which controls the spirit, the economy, the society and one which demands obeisance to the community or umma, but also most importantly to the temporal leader in whom both faith and worldly power are joined.
This point is especially relevant to the Arab conquests of North Africa, northern Persia, Afghanistan and central Asia. These initial Arab conquests were mostly achieved by offering the system to those politicians or warriors in need of a power base and a centralising system of compulsion. Islam was and is the greatest program of centralisation known to man. In fact without a strong Chinese state and dynastic system sitting athwart the initial Arab expansion during the 7th and 8th centuries, the Arabs might have moved right through Asia to the Pacific ocean.
It was thus better for many to join the advancing Arab armies and receive booty, pensions, women and a system of state control; than to resist. External enemies abounded during the early Arab conquests which allowed Arab leadership the opportunity to direct ambitions outwards and defuse internal conflicts or potential coups. Much easier to raid, plunder and conquer an external foe and receive massive financial benefits then to engage in long, bloody and perhaps pointless or fatal intra-Arab conflict.
Yet by denying freedom and by demanding unthinking submission to a cult and to a leadership which covets only power, the original Arab political project called Islam is little different than any other system of totality and pagan ritualisation. Eventually such a system simply implodes due to its own illogic and destructive intent. A fascism never survives – unless its enemies allow it too. This is the current modern danger. The supposedly educated modern Western mind does not address Islam as an imperialist tool and a cult of totality but as some sort of exalted spiritual program akin to Western doctrines of charity and love. Put into its proper historical context Islam can be viewed for what it is – a program of complete state control and a means to propagate imperialist war.