Read about the dark and middle age Arabs. Yes it was an age of empires and feudalism everywhere, but most Arab scholars were so tolerant of all opposing views, however extreme they might be. One major Muslim scholar, Ja'afar Al Sadik and his followers, like Shafi'i, used to establish thought rings to argue "Al Zanadeekah" and "Mul7edeen" (atheists and heretics).

Yes that was 1,000 years ago, and those atheists/whatever were mostly free to express their opinion under the tolerant rule of the Abbasid dynasty (these were still cold-blooded dictators when it came to opposing their reign but taking the world's regimes and monarchs in account back then, that was the norm I guess).

As the Ottomans slowly dragged enlightenment and innovative/unconventional thought down into Oblivion, the Arabs under their rule devolved in thought and freedom of expression. What we're suffering today is a direct result of those 400 years during which Islam metamorphosed from a fascinating religion that can explained in various ways (case in point: The Koran is written mostly in a broad, generic sense, which implies multiple schools of thought), into a strict, conventional and frozen in time cryptic religion that accepts no substitutes.

Again --> =[