Daniel Bax has missed to mention some fundamentals in critiquing " The Derelict House of Islam " One needs to begin with how the "West" developed economically and technologically, framing the issue in the pre-capitalist and capitalist formation(s). Bax has missed the political-economy sphere. The reference for writers like Ruud Koopman is the capitalist West. Hence the question is: why has capitalism in some countries developped "better" in others or has developed "unevenly" in general? It is capitalism that brought new ways of education, innovation, science and exploitation of nature and labour. Technological development, accumulation of capital (with violence at home and abroad) and productivity propelled development. Two world wars and the Holocaust also played a role and were part of capitalist development. Why did the attempt of industrialisation and capitalist development by "secular" states such as Egypt, Iraq and Syria in
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51