[jfengel]

The breaking happened before European colonization. There are (as always) a lot of reasons, but most historians point the finger at Genghis Khan and the Mongols. The fall of Baghdad in 1258 is often cited as the end of the Islamic Golden Age.

The area was dominated mostly by the Ottomans until the 19th century. Only then did Europe begin to colonize it in earnest. (They'd been focusing on the Americas instead.)

So European colonization plays a big role in what's going on now, but it's distinct from the end of that period from the 8th through 13th centuries where Islamic scholarship far outstripped anything going on in Europe. Unfortunately, all of that broke down, and the world was much the poorer for it.