Is Islam the ‘Stupidest Religion’?

Back in 2001, the French author Michel Houellebecq was accused of ‘inciting racial hatred’ for calling Islam ‘the stupidest religion’. This claim, made most famously by Houellebecq but also by many others, is that there is something about Islam that makes its adherents mindless. In one of the most comprehensive attempts to make this claim — Edward Dutton’s Islam: An Evolutionary Perspective — Dutton states that ‘Muslims are, when compared to those who are from countries that are genetically relatively similar but dominated by other religions, not very bright’. As he summarises:

The Five Pillars of Islam, around which the religion is based, are Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, at least once in your life time. None of these are particularly good for your intelligence and the majority are bad for it […] “Faith” reduces the practice of analytical thinking, damaging IQ directly and indirectly by negatively impacting the entire economy. “Prayer,” likewise, leads to economic inefficiency and suboptimal IQ at the individual level due to tiredness and lack of deep sleep. The impacts of “Pilgrimage” and especially “Alms- giving” are, at best, neutral, and there is a not unconvincing case for arguing that the impact of pilgrimage is negative. Put simply, following the Five Pillars of Islam, which are fundamental to the faith, reduces…