[TalBlack]

Christianity transmitted Knowledge through the Dark Ages. Islam squandered Knowledge and CREATED little dark ages.

[The_Reader_David]

Actually there's a good argument that the Muslims created The Dark Ages. It was first set forth by a Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne, in a book entitled Mohammed and Charlemagne, and has been reinforced by archaeological discoveries since (cf. Emmett Scott's Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited).

The key points on which the argument turn are the fact that both the use of gold currency and literacy in Western Europe collapsed, not with the waning of Imperial power in the face of the influx of Germanic tribes into the Empire -- Merovingian France and Visigothic Spain were literate societies to the same degree as the Roman Empire, and the Merovingians minted gold coin that circulated in parallel with the Imperial solidi minted in Constantinople or Ravanne -- but in the 7th century when Islam swept out of the Arabian peninsula, destroyed the Mediterranean as a trade route through piracy and raiding, and cut Western Europe off from the source of papyrus. Literacy became too expensive when the only thing you could write on or read from was parchment, and gold dropped out of circulation as the Muslims collected as much of it as they could through piracy and raiding.