Have you ever been to Saudia Arabia? Arguably one of the most high tech nations on this planet, not to mention UAE, Kuwait, etc.

The thing that gets me all the time is how some people will say that the Mid-East needs more education to understand democracy. In countries like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, Egypt, the average literacy rate is above 80%, in comparsion to countries like India or Pakistan which are democratic countries and America's allies in the war against terror, which have a literacy rate of only 50%!!

If you seperate the word modern from West, than Islam is the most modern religons, in that it emphasizes exploration, research, and so on.

The problem is though that the West doesn't care for implementing technology than it does for spreading it's CULTURE by which is the best gate way to spread it's capatalistic ideaologies.

The main problem with the Middle East is the corrupt leaders which are some way related to puppet governments put in place during colonial times. These governments (nothing compared to Amerca's greed though) fail to share their wealth with poorer nations such as Yemen and other Muslim African neighbors.