Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism

[polymath257]

Exactly how does that make what I said not true?

Intellectuals flourished in Islam not because of it, but, in spite of it.  Early on the caliphs were too busy fighting and consolidating power to worry about the intellectuals in Islam, whom they did not understand anyways.  When political and religious consolidation began to solidify under the caliphates, it became time for these people to go, as they were clearly a threat to the religious order.

Again, not completely true. For example, spherical trigonometry was pushed forward by the problem of trying to find the qibla (direction to Mecca). Computation was enhanced by the legal aspects of inheritance. The earliest work on polynomials was done in Islamic lands.


The point is that the Islamic expansion brought together many different cultures and, for a while, those cultures mixed and generated great intellectual works, often because of questions inspired by religion.