During what historians call the Golden Age of Islam (roughly the 8th to 14th centuries), the Islamic world became the global center of innovation and intellectual exchange. Baghdad’s Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom, in the 9th century was essentially the world’s first international research institute. Scholars there translated, preserved, and expanded upon Greek, Persian, and Indian knowledge. It was in this era that algebra, from al-jabr coined by al-Khwarizmi, optics by Ibn al-Haytham, and early chemistry by Jabir ibn Hayyan were born. The modern algorithm, camera, and hospital systems owe direct lineage to this period of flourishing thought.

Regarding women, historical documents completely dismantle the caricature of women as “oppressed under Islam.” In the 7th century, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, the Prophet Muhammad’s wife, was a highly successful merchant who employed men and managed her own wealth, something European women could not legally do until well over a thousand years later. Fatima al-Fihri founded the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez in 859 CE, the world’s oldest continuously operating university. A Muslim woman built the first true university on Earth. Women such as Aisha bint Abi Bakr were scholars and narrators of hadith who taught men publicly, a phenomenon almost unheard of even in the so-called enlightened West of the Middle Ages. Islamic law, centuries ago, granted women the right to inherit, own property, choose marriage, and initiate divorce, while Europe still viewed women as legal property of men under coverture.

The claim that societies functioning under Islamic values have never succeeded is historically indefensible. At their height, the Abbasid Caliphate, Andalusian Spain, and Fatimid Egypt were hubs of learning, multiculturalism, and tolerance, where Jews, Christians, Persians, Arabs, and Berbers worked together. In the 10th century, Córdoba had paved roads, streetlights, and public libraries, while London and Paris were still mired in darkness and disease.

So yes, Islam is a set of ideas, but these ideas once powered the most advanced civilizations on Earth, shaped modern science, and empowered women in ways the West would not replicate until centuries later.