I don't know about the "new religion" excuse for Islam -- Islam went through long spells, over 500 and maybe as long as 1000 -- where it was the sole religion in charge of a good chunk of the middle east, and it was open and expansive, and invited innovations and science and math and the arts. The real ugliness didn't start until the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of the First World War. The openness and expansiveness came to a juddering halt and the teeth came out and the claws from the velvet. I don't know why that should be; but it's not because the religion suddenly got "young" again.

O..O
=o=