[ValenB4]

The problem is Islam. For all of history prior to the rise of Islam, the Middle East was cultured and advanced, providing a beacon to the West. Islam snuffs out the vitality of civilization.

[muawiyah]

You are on the wrong time-line. Prior to the rise of Islam, just immediately prior to it in fact, the Dark Ages had descended on most of the world, and hardest on Western Europe.

Count the start from 538 AD!

Mohammad was one of the first to begin the long hard work of rolling back the Dark Ages.

The desert Arabs, formerly among the least influential of people, became the new leadership elite. It was through them that our knowledge of the ancients, and most stuff right up to AD 538, was derived.

Arguments rage over how thoroughly depopulated Europe, Central Asia, China and other sites of civilization might have been in that period, but we do know it was serious.