[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Arabs are behind because only half the population is allowed to contribute and that half is psychotic.

[TADSLOS]

WHAT went wrong with the Arab world?

The prophet Mohammed came up with this loony idea...

[weikel]

Islam?

[Utah Girl]

Ping

[arthurus]

tenets never held back the great Arab astronomers and mathematicians of the Middle Ages...

...who were mostly Christians and Jews or ex-Christians and Jews.

[Billthedrill]

What Went Wrong is the name of a book on this very topic by Bernard Lewis. This is a short version of some lectures he gave incorporating material from his much better and lengthier The Middle East of 1995, a must-read for area scholars.

The waste in human resouces of the sequestration of women is incalculable. It is also unnecessary. How the various Muslim governments deal with this issue correlates nicely with their respective economic and cultural developments detailed in the report cited here - this is not accidental.

Israel, and to a lesser degree the West in the symbolic form of the United States, are not only useful, but vital, to focus attention away from the failings of these governments. But hard questions are being asked in such places as the university campuses of Iran, for example, and the excuses are starting to wear thin.

[Migraine]

(it is indicative of the barriers to freely expressed thought that there are almost no worthwhile think-tanks in the Arab world)

Oh, they've got their think-tanks, alright; they're just running on "empty".

[SunStar]

WHAT went wrong with the Arab world?

Uhh... Radical Islam?

[ValenB4]

The problem is Islam. For all of history prior to the rise of Islam, the Middle East was cultured and advanced, providing a beacon to the West. Islam snuffs out the vitality of civilization.

[lodwick]

Outstanding post. Thank you. JL bttt

[Centurion2000]

WHAT went wrong with the Arab world? Why is it so stuck behind the times?

They worship Satan as an evil god with a meglomaniacal, sadistic, pedophile as his prophet.