It is a long hard road for anybody who wants to leave islam, and there are plenty that would like to, most of them women (no surprises there). This is a very pressing issue for the west today and it has been suggested that the women of islam are the weakest link and the point where maximum pressure needs to be applied to put the brakes on this societal cancer.
As Humbled said there is an interesting connection between the proliferation of islam and oil money, many years ago there was a deal struck that was the foundation of the petro dollar arrangement (scam). It went something like this, The saudi's said "we will sell oil for US Dollars and buy you goods in return (Cadillacs, armaments, luxury stuff), but you will not touch our religion".
It is no secret that the house of saud is a major source of funding for mosques all over the world today, not to mention the tsunami of money for anyone willing to prostitue themselves by backing the "islam is a religion of peace" mantra.