All undeniably true; the question is why?
I recently watched a programme on the TV about the history of Turkey and it seemed clear that Turkey turned a corner when Kemal Ataturk ‘modernised’ Turkey and the single most important thing he did to enable progress and prosperity was to ban Islam from politics. It seems to me that the reason Islamic countries fail so miserably is because the ordinary people think that the way you get what you want/need is to pray harder and they spend all their energies in pushing for even greater influence of Islam in governance which in turn pushes them back towards the 6th century instead of forward.
Thinker, that theory in truth carries no weight my friend, and to characterize Islam and Muslims in that fashion is a grave error in judgment and understanding of both the current as well as the historical reality of Islam and the Muslim Civilization. I can understand were you are coming from, the reference of the West's own unique experiences with religion and its path to "modernity" can't be applied nor used to explain the unique circumstances of the Islamic world and it is own unique course through destiny.
If Islam is the reason for the downwards and decline of the Muslim World, and if the complete adherence to Islam is a one way ticket to the 6th century, then how do you explain the evident truth that the Muslim Civilization is in fact the very thing that brought this world from darkness to light, and I'm not referring here in the spiritual realm, but in the Scientific and Technological fields. From Geometry, Medicine, Astronomy, to Chemistry, Botany to Arts and Architecture. How do you explain Avicenna, Rhazes, Albucasis, Ibn al-Baitar, al-Khwarizm, al-Batani, Al-Haytham, ibn-Majid, Ghazali and Ibn-Khaldum? How do you explain that to the backward West during its dark ages, Modernity, Enlightenment and Islam meant the same thing. Nay is there any decent scholar who would deny that the Islamic Civilization laid the seeds which made possible the modern advances in technology and science as well as Europe's own enlightenment?
It's this Eurocentrism and Euro-Colonialism-based world view that portrays Islam as Backward, incapable of coexisting with development, Modernity, as Anti-Education, Anti-Science, Anti-Technology. Its this same very world view that was spread to the Muslim masses and has handicapped Muslims for the last couple of centuries, the same Colonialism that preached to the Muslims, Leave behind Islam, the very Light that sparked the seeds of scholarship and science of the early Muslims, of the fruits of their labor which the world, the west in particular, enjoyed. Alas the Muslim world was paid back with what the history books testify to. I must say tho, it is nothing compared to what the indigenous people in all corners of the world suffered, but we'll not get into that. It's that Eurocentric Colonialism-based educational institutions that Attaturk as well as all the other tyrants and dictators, puppets to you, of the Muslim world graduated from.
Islam is not the problem my friend, the problem is Muslims, its Muslims who are ignorant of their own heritage, Muslims who believe shaving the beard, wearing a suit, drinking alcohol, smoking, fornicating, is the path to Modernity, for that is what the Modernized west does. Its Muslims who are unaware that the spirit that brought the west out of the dark ages, which we are going through at the moment, into its current state, in terms of technological and scientific advances, was an Islamic Spirit, the spirit of scholarship, of applied theory, of dedication and hard-work. Traits which Islam doesn't only approve but Promotes.
Muslims are now freeing themselves of those shackles of and re-discovering their own heritage and past. Through that re-discovery I hope we'll learn from our mistakes and be inspired and enriched by those great role models of our early generations and heritage to rise from this darkness back to the light and honor.
That man can have nothing but what he strives for;
That (the fruit of) his striving will soon come in sight:
Then will he be rewarded with a reward complete.
Quran Chapter 53, Verses 39-41
