When your own civilization was struggling with ignorance and illiteracy during the era you now call the “Dark Ages,” and the institution that dominated your society—the Church—played a major role in suppressing intellectual inquiry, do not turn around and blame Islam. For more than a thousand years, the Muslim world stood among the most powerful and intellectually advanced civilizations on Earth. That strength was not achieved by abandoning Islam; it emerged after Islam. Before Islam, the Arabs were divided, politically fragmented, and had no civilization comparable to what they would later build under Islam. The West did not become the dominant global power until roughly the last 250 years—a tiny fraction of the period during which Muslim civilization shaped science, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, architecture, and education. Much of the modern West’s rise followed the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the gradual separation of religious authority from political and scientific institutions. Yet some Westerners make the absurd mistake of assuming that because their own historical experience involved conflict between religious institutions and scientific advancement, every religion must necessarily have the same relationship with knowledge. Islam does not. The very first revealed word of the Qur’an was “Read.” Knowledge—whether religious or worldly—is given immense importance in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: “Whoever follows a path in pursuit of knowledge, Allah will make easy fro him a path to paradise.” So do not rewrite history as though Islam emerged as an enemy of knowledge. Muslim civilization produced scholars whose work became foundational to later scientific development, and Muslim libraries, universities, and intellectual centers—particularly in al-Andalus—preserved, developed, and transmitted knowledge that later reached Europe through translation. You may take pride in the achievements of modern Western civilization, but do not confuse 250 years of global Western dominance with the entirety of human intellectual history. Islam did not teach us to fear knowledge. Islam taught us to pursue it. Btw: the ghat he is chewing is forbidden in Islam and so is any intoxicants.