whenever you argue with a Muslim and bring up the state of islam and it’s followers, you get met with the same answer almost every single time

“that is normal, we were strong in the past and the west was weak, now it just happens that they are ahead of us, just you wait until it is our turn to rise”

so, I decided to look into this whole thing a little deeper, first we will discuss the state of the world from the 8th century to the 12th century, when muslims were at their peak (in science and innovation), and the west was in a so-called dark age.

the Islamic world: Muslims were at their peak, countless scientific discoveries and innovations were made, they were more tolerant of others, were the center of learning, and were overall much better places to live than the west

the west: we cant really lump together all the western world, so I will talk about two states here, the byzantine empire, the Carolingian Empire (later the franks and hre)

byzantine empire: contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t that bad, they managed to hold onto their heartland very well against the muslims, their navy was equal (if not better) than the muslim one, while they weren’t flourishing by any means, they still had enough strength to resist the muslims and retain their independence.

Carolingian Empire: im mostly talking about charlemagnes reign here (ion know what his successors did), anyways his reign saw the carolignian renaissance, he established a system of schools in his empire, and his empire was very successful in war, conquering many many states and beating the muslims in Al-Andalus (keep in mind though Al-Andalus was very far away from the muslims’ center of power)

conclusion: I will make a second part to this, it will be about the time between the 20th and 16th century this time, I will go more in depth in way their argument is faulty, but basically, even in the west’s dark age, they were still relevant on the world stage, unlike muslim countries nowadays, yes, the muslims were ahead, but they weren’t as ahead as western countries are now, plus, the whole civilizations fall and others arise argument (which I agree with to some extent) can only be applied on individual states, not massive regions of the world like the Islamic world.

for example, in the west, when the spanish declined, the french and british took their place as naval powers, in the case of the muslim world, the ENTIRE region is defunct, not on a state to state basis, no, the whole foundation is fucked up.