That is a great article!
I have often pondered this topic, because...no matter how you cut it, Mohammed was not in any way comparable to Jesus in any way, morally, intellectually, or spiritually. Especially morally, by our Western standards.
Mohammed did understand raw power, but that didn’t make him unique. There have been plenty of strong men throughout history who understood that quite well.
I am a huge fan of the now deceased Bernard Lewis and have read “The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years” and “Islam: The Religion and the People”, but by far the most fascinating one was: “What Went Wrong?” that describes how Islam went from being an intellectual and military power to “The Sick Man of Europe” in the 19th century.
The short answer is: it was their arrogance.
They didn’t think Infidels could provide any useful knowledge. They viewed Infidel works as tainted.
While the Infidels were obtaining Islamic works in Arabic and translating them into other languages by the bushel basketful for dissemination and discussion, up to the point in the16th Century, hundreds of years, only ONE book, one single book in all those hundreds of years that had been translated from the West into Arabic: a book on how to treat sexually transmitted diseases. And that was only because that was thought to be an area of “Frankish” expertise, and therefore, permissible.
Most telling in the military aspect, in Bernard Lewis’ excellent book “What Went Wrong”, after their staggering naval defeat at The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 where the Ottoman Empire lost 113 galleys to 13 lost by the Holy League, there is a documented official account of a conversation between two Ottoman naval engineers examining the wreck of a Spanish or Genoese ship that had ended up on a beach, and they were astonished at the technology, weapons and construction, which were far superior to that of their own ships.
They fully saw their own inferiority, and were wondering not how to rapidly incorporate those changes into their own ship construction and weaponry, but instead, were wondering about the religious aspect of using Infidel technology, and the need to get an Islamic dispensation (an official “Fatwa”) to allow them to do it!
We in the West, and the USA in particular have our own faults, but we have no problems appropriating weapons technology and incorporating it, not to mention language, food, etc.
Everyone was essentially a slave to the Sultan. There was no sense of security in your life, your family or your property. The leaders of that fleet carried into battle everything they owned. Holy League ships seized fortunes of gold, silver, jewels, etc. on ships captured afloat, sinking or washing up to the shore.
The other MAJOR FLAW OF ISLAM, is the refusal to accept women as equal to men in terms of BRAIN POWER.
There are smart women that happen to be born into a mooselimb family, and in most cases, they are never allowed to show their brain power.
Look at the powerful, brilliant women that have come from the western culture, including Natalie Carbone Mangini, from Crabtree, PA that was instrumental in the development of our nuclear subs.
There are so many smart women in the west that never would be allowed to even participate in a mooselimb culture.
The mooselimbs bury half of their brain power because of their stupid views.