Why do Atheists defend Islam?

[God of Mr. Hanky]

These fundamental problems relate directly to the personality of Mohammad, whose tale was written not by people who were not the product of Greek culture, but of desert raiding, horse-stealing, woman-beating, and slave-marketing machismo. Reform of a religion is much easier when you have a compassionate hippie dude like Jesus as your central figure to look to for behavioral standards, while a dick like Mohammad, remembered as he is, is keeping Muslims forever in the 7th Century.

I don't know about that. There was a time when muslims were a progressive powerhouse; forward looking both socially and technologically. Repression is not automatically an Islamic attribute, it depends on the current 'archetypal' interpretations of the qur'an/hadith.

I'm aware of Middle-Eastern knowledge power, in the wake of the Byzantine Empire - however, I'm not aware of this having anything to do with Islam. It was there, but that itself doesn't make it a contributing factor to M.E. success at the time.

When it became apparent outside of the Xtian sphere that Xtians had serious interest in world domination, this was about the time that the Muslims got serious on their religion, at the expense of their culture. Unfortunately for them, they rejected math and science, along with their infidels, and it was all downhill from there. This is why I really doubt that Islam ever could have done that region any good.