There's of course an alternative explanation for the libertarianism experienced at the start of the islamic conquests. The first few centuries the explanation

There's of course an alternative explanation for the libertarianism experienced at the start of the islamic conquests. The first few centuries the explanation was simply : there were no muslims the vast majority of the region talked about. The islamic golden age was Christians, mostly under a fractured and declining Christian government (a theocracy in some respects even), Persians and Hindus. VERY few muslims. Therefore there is a case to be made that islam simply spread during a golden age of Christian civilization, during a golden age of the Eastern Roman Empire mostly. In the later centuries, when the situation was already deteriorating dramatically and even then that was still true. Vast, vast majorities of non-muslims, with a small muslim elite running the government, but all economic activity in Christian/Hindu (and some cases Jewish) hands. When the regions hit a little over 10% muslim population the situation became untenable and everything collapsed, never to improve until the oil. Even today, when you count workers, Saudi Arabia does not have a muslim-majority economy (note that they have unemployment of >70% when you discount immigrants). In fact, it may not even have a muslim-majority population, depending on what numbers you believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant...