Islam

About 500 years ago the Muslim world decided that to protect the purity of its religion it must cut themselves off from western influence and in doing so they missed the industrial revolution. The result was that most Muslim areas remained third world countries. The only ones able to overcome this were the countries that had oil and these needed western help to develop the fields. If the west had not intervened, places like Saudi Arabia would still be desert tribes living in tents. The problems were further exasperated in 1948 when the State of Israel was founded. Even though the Arabs had overwhelming forces and outnumber the Israelis 100 to one they were humiliated by losing five wars and territory to go with them. More recently the defeat of Saddam and the loss of the dream of the caliphate under ISIS has added to their burden.