As I have noted on several occasions, the tiny nation of Israel, is at least one thousand times more inventive on a per capita basis than the Arab and Islamic world.
Islam means submission. And that submission is to a final text, written roughly in the 7th century AD, which purports to include all knowledge necessary to transit this life successfully. No added science is needed, no learning of any sort. Nor is any soul-searching, or dark nights of the soul needed. You just have to do exactly what you are told, across a life-time, then you reach an eternal heaven.
In my own view, no more pernicious doctrine for actual spiritual, social, cultural, economic, or political development could be imagined. No doubt many people grow anyway, become good people anyway, but all that in spite of, not because of their foundational text.
In South Asia, many Muslims dance and play music. So too did the Sufis.
In the 1970’s, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and other nations were quite liberal with respect to women. The Islamists–who in my view were largely funded and driven by the Soviets through their agents–ended all that.
What more dull life could be imagined that being forced to recite the exact same prayer 5x a day for the rest of your life? Where nearly every possible spontaneous expression of praise and joy is forbidden?
Violence is the inevitable result. One could as easily lay our impulse to conquer North America to our Puritanism, frustration, latent anger, and following self congratulatory moralisms.