This may rub some people the wrong way, but I think Islam’s founding general - Muhammad - was also a brilliant man. He devised an ideology that created a huge empire in his lifetime and managed to organize armies that stayed loyal to him through conquests of great swathes of land. His less savory side includes pedophilia, rape, enslavement, mass murder and looting. But all of the empire he conquered in his lifetime remains Muslim today.
It might also have to do with positive connotations in the word, “brilliant.” Smart or intelligent doesn’t have those connotations. “brilliant,” after all, refers to light.
Islam is retarded and thus can only be maintained through sheer tyranical force. Mohammed’s predictions failed after his death (no more Caliphate and thus Islam has been moribund ever since). The historical revisionism of Islam is just as nonsensical as their rewriting of the Old Testament and New Testament stories and logic. It’s completely different.