Why are so many Muslim countries poor countries?

[Mr Rayon]

I'm not sure whether many people are aware of this on SFN but most Muslim countries are poor and generally just doesn't compete that well in the global economy, apart from a few exceptions.

 

Why are so many Muslim countries poor countries?

 

What is the likely root-cause of this?

 

What does everybody think?

[Fuzzwood]

Simple, and this might sound a bit racistic, but I guess it's because they keep clinging a little bit too radically to their book of fairytales and don't see any opportunities besides qapla'ing everybody that doesn't think like them.

[lamp]

The very simple reason is they do not support and advance technology as well as modernity.

 

While western countries are open to new and advance in speed mode, the eastern countries advance very slowly with a lot of resistance.

[Dekan]

I'm not sure whether many people are aware of this on SFN but most Muslim countries are poor and generally just doesn't compete that well in the global economy, apart from a few exceptions.

 

Why are so many Muslim countries poor countries?

 

What is the likely root-cause of this?

 

What does everybody think?

 

The obvious answer, is that it's due to the fatalistic attitude induced by the Muslim religion. " Don't help yourself, Allah will provide".

 

But could it be, because a lot of Muslim countries are in hot parts of the world. The heat disinclines the inhabitants to do any work. So they just lay around all the time.

 

There's a similar effect in Europe. The hot Southern parts of Europe, like Greece, are full of people who don't work. This lack of work, causes their country to build up huge monetary debts. These debts then have to be paid by the hardworking Northern people. Like the people in Germany, who are rightly getting annoyed.

 

Same with the USA, and her neighbouring country Mexico. In the last few decades, haven't you Americans let 50,000,000 Mexicans enter Southern and Western states like California? What effect have they caused? Your once hi-tech "Golden State" of California has become bankrupt, and even has power blackouts!

 

This is a result of your letting in people with heat-induced torpor in their genes. You can't blame the new "Poor California" on religion. The Mexicans are all Catholics.

[timo]

I'm not sure whether many people are aware of this on SFN but most Muslim countries are poor and generally just doesn't compete that well in the global economy, apart from a few exceptions.

Isn't it funny that when I think of "Muslim countries" all the countries coming to my mind spontaneously seem to be the "few exceptions"? Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran, Kuwait, and Qatar, for example. I doubt that the relative wealth (compared to world average) of these nations is related to or even due to the religion of the people there, of course.

I checked the five countries with the lowest Human Development Index according to the German Wikipedia: 3/5 have a predominantly Christian population (Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Kongo, Burundi), 1/5 is almost exclusively Muslim (Niger), and 1/5 mainly some local religion with Christianity coming second (Mozambique).

 

So what is the basis you foot your statement that "Muslim countries are poor and generally just doesn't compete that well in the global economy" on, and what is the definition of "poor and generally just don't compete that well in the global economy"? Or are you merely asking why the US, Europe, China, and Japan are not Muslim?

 

@Fuzzwood: Yes, indeed: you do sound very racist (in lack of the word "religionist"). But you're not alone in there.

Edited July 10, 2011 by timo

[michel123456]

The obvious answer, is that it's due to the fatalistic attitude induced by the Muslim religion. " Don't help yourself, Allah will provide".

 

But could it be, because a lot of Muslim countries are in hot parts of the world. The heat disinclines the inhabitants to do any work. So they just lay around all the time.

 

There's a similar effect in Europe. The hot Southern parts of Europe, like Greece, are full of people who don't work. This lack of work, causes their country to build up huge monetary debts. These debts then have to be paid by the hardworking Northern people. Like the people in Germany, who are rightly getting annoyed.

 

Same with the USA, and her neighbouring country Mexico. In the last few decades, haven't you Americans let 50,000,000 Mexicans enter Southern and Western states like California? What effect have they caused? Your once hi-tech "Golden State" of California has become bankrupt, and even has power blackouts!

 

This is a result of your letting in people with heat-induced torpor in their genes. You can't blame the new "Poor California" on religion. The Mexicans are all Catholics.

 

If that were true then never would the anvcient greeks have ruled the Mediterranean till India, nor would the Roman Empire exist at all. Carthage was south of Rome and was about to rule out the eternal city. Egypt was also south of London. The Ottoman Empire was the fear of Europe for centuries. There are a lot of historical examples.

Edited July 10, 2011 by michel123456

[lamp]

You guys could state your opinions more political, I would expect intellectuals not to fall for that anti-muslim propaganda in the media. Not saying you're wrong, but your statements are emotionally loaded.

 

I witness this in my daily life as well, as soon as muslim or terrorism is debated people react heated full of emotions, bottom line is that emotions are poison for the clear mind.

[Dekan]

If that were true then never would the anvcient greeks have ruled the Mediterranean till India, nor would the Roman Empire exist at all. Carthage was south of Rome and was about to rule out the eternal city. Egypt was also south of London. The Ottoman Empire was the fear of Europe for centuries. There are a lot of historical examples.

 

The Ancient Greeks and Romans originated in Northern Europe. Then they migrated south into Greece and Italy. There they temporarily achieved things like the Roman Empire. But they soon succumbed to heat-induced lassitude, and the Empire fell. Conquered by the vigorous Northern people, Goths, Vandals, and such.

 

Even today, Northern Italy is much more prosperous and industrially advanced, than the impoverished South. It's the heat.

 

As for Carthage, it never had the energy to raise a Punic army. It relied on hired mercenaries. These were led by a general of genius, Hannibal, but even he couldn't defeat Rome. True, things might have gone differently, if he'd marched on Rome immediately after smashing 8 Roman legions at Cannae, but he didn't. Lassitude.

 

And Ancient Egypt - perfect example of a civilisation with potential never fulfilled. They invented a beautiful written script, but didn't do much else. Apart from piling up huge pyramidal heaps of stone, then exhausted by this effort, relapse into lassitude. It's the heat again.

 

The Ottoman Empire soon got wasted once Northern Europeans decided it was a real nuisance and got rid of it.

 

Anyway, all this is an off-topic digression.

 

To get back to the OP, in my opinion the real reason many Muslim countries are poor, is that the inhabitants are too exhausted by heat to work hard, so they don't get prosperous.

 

I don't think it's due to the Muslim religion per se - it's a fine virile faith.

[Marat]

I think you can correctly make an association between Islam and poverty if you focus not on the number of countries which are Islamic and poor but on the number of people. Many Islamic countries are contingently rich because of oil deposits, though before oil was discovered and exploited in the early 20th century, all these areas were extremely poor, which provides a better baseline for measuring the link between the Islamic beliefs of the population and wealth. But the mass of Moslems are today living in poverty, since Islamic nations with a huge population base, like Egypt and Indonesia, are poor, while the wealthy oil countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Quatar have small populations.

 

Perhaps the link between Islam and poverty is not cause and effect but effect and cause. Thus only if a nation is poor and thus lacks education, critical thinking, modern institutions of learning, etc. can it preserve the necessary conceptual narrowness to fit comfortably within such an absolutist dogma as Islam represents. In contrast, cultures which have historically experienced the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment also experienced a major boost in productivity and wealth from those historical events, as well as an enormous improvement in their collective critical intellect, and so in these countries wealth and intelligence were linked, and intelligence ousts dogmatic belief systems under its critical power.

[Hal.]

................. List of countries by muslim population , Wiki link ...................

 

 

 

.... World Muslim population by percentage , Pew Research Centre 2009 ....

 

 

 

Here are some money numbers from the CIA ( year ? ) and the IMF ( 2006 ) .

 

Economy of the organization of the Islamic Conference , Wiki link

 

Be aware of the time of the Information .

Edited July 10, 2011 by Hal.

[michel123456]

The Ancient Greeks and Romans originated in Northern Europe. Then they migrated south into Greece and Italy. There they temporarily achieved things like the Roman Empire. But they soon succumbed to heat-induced lassitude, and the Empire fell. Conquered by the vigorous Northern people, Goths, Vandals, and such.

 

Even today, Northern Italy is much more prosperous and industrially advanced, than the impoverished South. It's the heat.

 

As for Carthage, it never had the energy to raise a Punic army. It relied on hired mercenaries. These were led by a general of genius, Hannibal, but even he couldn't defeat Rome. True, things might have gone differently, if he'd marched on Rome immediately after smashing 8 Roman legions at Cannae, but he didn't. Lassitude.

 

And Ancient Egypt - perfect example of a civilisation with potential never fulfilled. They invented a beautiful written script, but didn't do much else. Apart from piling up huge pyramidal heaps of stone, then exhausted by this effort, relapse into lassitude. It's the heat again.

 

The Ottoman Empire soon got wasted once Northern Europeans decided it was a real nuisance and got rid of it.

 

Anyway, all this is an off-topic digression.

You can't be serious.

 

To get back to the OP, in my opinion the real reason many Muslim countries are poor, is that the inhabitants are too exhausted by heat to work hard, so they don't get prosperous.

 

I don't think it's due to the Muslim religion per se - it's a fine virile faith.

 

So you believe that people in the southern countries don't work and that is the reason they don't get prosperous.

 

By far, workers in South Korea have the longest work hours among OECD countries. The average South Korean works 2,256 hours each year, according to the OECD[9]. This is over 100 hours longer than the next longest-working country (Greece) and 25% more hours than the average in the United States .

source wiki

 

In fact people in poor countries may work terribly harder and longer than in rich countries because of lack of productivity. It is not the heat that make people lazy. You must abandon the romantic image of the Mexican enjoying a good sleep next to his donkey. The Mexican is exhausted because he hasn't eat proteins for days and he economies his sweat because he has not enough fresh water to drink. He would jump immediately if you proposed him a work in the assembly production of Mercedes-Benz and he would work harder and not have the demands of a German worker.

Edited July 11, 2011 by michel123456

[CaptainPanic]

In order to ask yourself why the Muslim countries are so poor, you first have to prove that they are poor. And they are not (click for a list of Gross Domestic Product per Capita).

 

Muslim countries are quite average - on average about the same as most Asian, South American or some African countries. Muslim countries are distributed quite evenly across that list of GDP per capita... They are not present in the bottom 20 (those are (almost) all sub-Saharan countries). And there are two Muslim countries in the Top-5 of highest GDP per capita: Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Sure, that's because of their oil. But aren't large Western economies running well because of access to resources too? There is a clear link to access to resources, access to cheap labor (abroad) and the success of an economy.

 

I conclude that this attempt to link Islam to poverty is based on thin air. The numbers do not suggest any significant correlation between religion and economy... so the entire discussion is pointless, and should be moved to speculations.

 

The opposite might however have some foundation: that poor (and uneducated?) people more often fall victim to religion (in general). But I cannot believe that this correlation would be stronger with regard to Islam than any other religion.

[timo]

I conclude that this attempt to link Islam to poverty is based on thin air. The numbers do not suggest any significant correlation between religion and economy... so the entire discussion is pointless, and should be moved to speculations.

Why move it to speculations? People in the speculations forum are usually expected to back up their premises, as far as I see. Edited July 11, 2011 by timo

[CaptainPanic]

Why move it to speculations? People in the speculations forum are usually expected to back up their premises, as far as I see.

They are usually asked to back up the claims and/or explain the assumptions that were made, but hardly ever succeed. Most threads that are moved to speculations cannot be backed up because they are based on assumptions which aren't true. And that's why I think this thread belongs in speculations.

 

Threads in the speculations section suggest a certain (lack of) scientific rigor and I think this thread should be placed there as well, because the main assumption on which the entire discussion so far is based is not true, or at least not proven: Muslim countries aren't significantly poorer or richer than other countries.

[Hal.]

One person can earn €4 500 000 in a year where I live and when the money for statistical purposes is divided amongst everybody we all apparently look like we have another €1 . When one thousand people earn €4 500 000 each in a year , this apparently makes the impression that we all have an extra €1000 . Deciding whether a country is poor or not based on an equal distribution of wealth is wrong , in the same way that deciding whether the fat man and the skinny man have eaten plenty of food or not , based on whether the fat man has had breakfast , is wrong .

Edited July 11, 2011 by Hal.

[DJBruce]

Z

So I doubted the OP's clam, but this graphic seems to lend it credence. However, it also shows that the in general the more religous a country is the poorer it is so it is not necessarily Islam itself.

[michel123456]

Hum. I don't see any country right from the U.S. although the States are number 7 in the following list.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

 

After Qatar, Brunei & UAE which are muslim nations.

Edited July 11, 2011 by michel123456

[Hal.]

GDP per Capita is an ' average ' wealth measurement and it's methodology for calculation may be variable . It makes people think I am wealthy because someone else earns lot's of money and vice versa . In relation to muslim countries , probably all countries , it does the same thing .

 

A graph of cumulative wealth distribution to the number of people in a country would be interesting and informative . I've no doubt such graphs show that generally a small percentage of people have a lot of wealth while the masses haven't .

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Lorenz_curve

 

This is a ' lorenz curve ' .

 

 

[CaptainPanic]

One person can earn €4 500 000 in a year where I live and when the money for statistical purposes is divided amongst everybody we all apparently look like we have another €1 . When one thousand people earn €4 500 000 each in a year , this apparently makes the impression that we all have an extra €1000 . Deciding whether a country is poor or not based on an equal distribution of wealth is wrong , in the same way that deciding whether the fat man and the skinny man have eaten plenty of food or not , based on whether the fat man has had breakfast , is wrong .

Ok, so you say that the GDP per capita is not the perfect tool to evaluate wealth of the population.

 

The OP mentioned that "Muslim countries are poor and do not compete well in the global economy". In such economic terms, GDP per capita is an accepted tool to evaluate the economy of a country.

 

But if you do not accept it, please provide us with another tool to evaluate the average wealth of the populations of Muslim countries in relation to non-Muslim countries? Because it is essential that we evaluate this before we can discuss the alleged link between Islam and poverty.

 

(scroll up for image posted in DJBruce's original post)

So I doubted the OP's clam, but this graphic seems to lend it credence. However, it also shows that the in general the more religous a country is the poorer it is so it is not necessarily Islam itself.

That graph is a rather selective presentation of facts. I have the following problems with it:

- From the top-10 most populated countries, China and Nigeria (both non-Muslim) are missing in that chart.

- Relatively rich Muslim countries like Malaysia or Iran are missing too.

- Wealth is - as far as I'm concerned - something which should be plotted on a log-scale, not a linear one. In a linear scale, the large majority of all countries fit in the lowest category.

- I count only about 80 dots on that chart, there should be >200.

- The black dots are pasted over the yellow/red ones in the top-left corner, emphasizing the black ones.

- In the top left corner, only the black ones are named, while other colored dots do not have a name.

 

Also, I would claim that this graph does not link poverty to Islam. It does however suggest that Muslim countries have a very high percentage of Muslim population (namely about 100%). In that respect they distinguish themselves from other countries, where the percentage of "people who say that religion plays an important role in their lives" is lower than 100%... This graph shows the map of the world, and how religious people are (without leaving half the world out).

 

But that's not the point we're trying to prove, is it?

 

We're trying to (dis)prove a significant correlation between poverty and Islam. So, India (poor and mostly non-Islamic) disproves the correlation. All sub-Saharan Africa disproves the correlation. Rich Muslim countries disprove the correlation. In fact, if you would run the numbers, I bet there is no statistical significant correlation at all. I think that the correlation between the Hindu religion and poverty is a lot stronger, because of the economic state of India.

 

Poor countries do have things in common, but the type of religion it is not.

 

So, before we re-enter the discussion trying to find out why Islam and poverty would be linked, I think we should either broaden is (and make this non-religious, and include sub-Saharan Africa and India at least) or really prove that the correlation is there. So far I am not satisfied at all.

Edited July 12, 2011 by CaptainPanic

[Hal.]

One person can earn €4 500 000 in a year where I live and when the money for statistical purposes is divided amongst everybody we all apparently look like we have another €1 . When one thousand people earn €4 500 000 each in a year , this apparently makes the impression that we all have an extra €1000 . Deciding whether a country is poor or not based on an equal distribution of wealth is wrong , in the same way that deciding whether the fat man and the skinny man have eaten plenty of food or not , based on whether the fat man has had breakfast , is wrong .

 

 

Ok, so you say that the GDP per capita is not the perfect tool to evaluate wealth of the population .

 

The OP mentioned that "Muslim countries are poor and do not compete well in the global economy". In such economic terms, GDP per capita is an accepted tool to evaluate the economy of a country.

 

But if you do not accept it, please provide us with another tool to evaluate the average wealth of the populations of Muslim countries in relation to non-Muslim countries? Because it is essential that we evaluate this before we can discuss the alleged link between Islam and poverty.

 

My objection to comparing countries' wealth based on GDP per capita is mathmatical . It is an average . Maybe the GDP per capita excluding the top 10% of earners would fuel some interesting inferences . GDP per capita may be an accepted statistic for the evaluation of an economy but I wouldn't use it to form my opinion . GDP per capita can be used with knowledge of the population to calculate GDP which doesn't show how the wealth is being distributed . I would tend to look at statistics which would show the earnings for different sections of an economy , unemployment payments , social allowances , access to healthcare , homelessness , cost of living , availability of necessities , and so forth .

 

If I happen to find statistics , which I think can accurately show the distribution of wealth earned in any particular year or even overall , to show who has the wealth in countries worldwide , I will put a link here for readers to view them .

[michel123456]

That graph is a rather selective presentation of facts. I have the following problems with it:

- From the top-10 most populated countries, China and Nigeria (both non-Muslim) are missing in that chart.

- Relatively rich Muslim countries like Malaysia or Iran are missing too.

- Wealth is - as far as I'm concerned - something which should be plotted on a log-scale, not a linear one. In a linear scale, the large majority of all countries fit in the lowest category.

- I count only about 80 dots on that chart, there should be >200.

- The black dots are pasted over the yellow/red ones in the top-left corner, emphasizing the black ones.

- In the top left corner, only the black ones are named, while other colored dots do not have a name.

 

Well done Captain. Graphs have so many times a hidden agenda.

 

One could add

 

_Why separate catholics from other christians and on the other side put Sunni & Shia muslims together?

_why choose black color for Islam? Because black is the color of death in a christian mind, or because black color covers everything else? I vote for the latter because it is a rule in these diagrams to use transparent colors*

_the entire U.S. population has become christian, how come?

 

* it is quite difficult to get readable diagrams of this kind because 2 colors by transparency make a 3rd color that you can not use in the legend for representing something else. For example if you use blue and yellow, you get green by intersection: you cannot use green for representing an entity.

Edited July 12, 2011 by michel123456

[Marat]

Add up the total population of the world's Muslim's living in countries which are essentially 100% Muslim. Then add up the total GDP of those countries. Divide the population by the total GDP and you will have a more reliable measure of the link between being a Muslim and being poor than just looking at the rankings of countries, which greatly vary in their populations. The simplification of taking only the number of Muslims living in 100% Muslim countries is necessary because GDP is listed by country, so you want the country to measure the effect of Islam without much dilution.

[CaptainPanic]

Ok, I found the one graph that I think is the answer, namely this one:

The white circles are the current GDP per capita in 2010, averaged for entire regions of this earth.

Note that MENA (click for wikipedia picture) is "Middle East and Northern Africa"... It excludes the extremely poor Afghanistan, but also the relatively wealthy Turkey. I hope that we can agree that it's still a reasonable representation of the "Muslim countries"?

 

Then please note that the white circle representing the current GDP per capita is larger for the MENA than for the following regions:

- Sub-Saharan Africa - 800 million people

- China - 1.3 billion people

- India - 1.2 billion people

- CIS (Russia and other former Soviet republics) - 300 million people

- Asia excluding China/India/Japan - (couldn't find how many people)

----------------------------------------- +

- A total of 3.6 billion people

 

So, MENA has a higher GDP per capita than more than half of the world's population. And I therefore conclude that we cannot make a point that links Islam to poverty... because the region is not poor. We (I guess most people on this forum) just belong to the top 10%, and we are just incredibly rich.

[Hal.]

..........................................................The Ten Poorest countries in the World............................................................................

 

10 . Sierra Leone , 81.5% Living In Poverty , 53.4% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 52.3% Deprived Of Drinking Water

9 . Guinea , 82.4% Living In Poverty , 70.1% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 54.2% Deprived Of Adequate Schooling

8 . Liberia , 83.9% Living In Poverty , 83.7% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 83.9% Deprived Of Cooking Fuel

7 . Central African Republic , 86.4% Living In Poverty , 62.4% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 82% Deprived Of Electricity

6 . Somalia , 81.2% Living In Poverty , 69.1% Deprived Of Sanitation , 70% Deprived Of Drinking Water

5 . Burundi , 84.5% Living In Poverty , 81.3% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 93.4% Living On At Least $2.00 A Day

4 . Burkina Faso , 56.5% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 35.4% Deprived Of Nutrition , 55.1% Deprived Of Adequate Schooling

3 . Mali , 87.1% Living In Poverty , 51.4% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 36.2% Deprived Of Electricity

2 . Ethiopia , 90% Living In Poverty , 39% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 61.5% Deprived Of Adequate Schooling

1 . Niger , 92.7% Living In Poverty , 65.9% Living On At Least $1.25 A Day , 89.5% Deprived Of Sanitation

 

..................................................... Number of Muslims in total population ................. % of total population who are Muslims

 

10 . Sierra Leone............................................... 4 059 000.....................................................................71.3

9 . Guinea........................................................ 8 502 000.....................................................................84.4

8 . Liberia........................................................... 483 000.....................................................................12.2

7 . Central African Republic.................................... 395 000......................................................................8.9

6 . Somalia....................................................... 8 995 000....................................................................98.5

5 . Burundi.......................................................... 180 000......................................................................2

4 . Burkina Faso................................................ 9 292 000.....................................................................59

3 . Mali...........................................................12 040 000.....................................................................92.5

2 . Ethiopia......................................................28 063 000....................................................................33.9

1 . Niger..........................................................15 075 000....................................................................98.6

 

 

 

Sources :

 

http://www.huffingto...9&title=1_Niger

http://www.ophi.org....-poverty-index/

http://en.wikipedia....slim_population

http://www.geographi...hysical-map.htm

 

Hal._2011

 

Edit : Previous sources addresses did not link .

Edited July 13, 2011 by Hal.

[CharonY]

In addition the fact that it has not shown conclusively a link between religion and wealth, it strikes me as odd that the more important issue, namely history, has been rather completely ignored.

 

While western countries are open to new and advance in speed mode, the eastern countries advance very slowly with a lot of resistance.

These blanket statement is an example of extreme oversimplification with no real basis.

 

During the early middle ages Islamic countries were extremely wealthy as compared to the west European nations (I am using nation in the loosest possible way considering the fluidity of the concept at that time). Much of it due to their role in trade between east and west.

The interesting thing is that there was no strong feudalistic system in place and still they maintained a loose coherence based on faith (also note that there was no central church or similar organization). Nonetheless they developed a rich and highly advanced culture.

 

Meanwhile after the installing a feudalistic system with close ties to a centralized organisation (i.e. the catholic church) the West was slower in consolidating its power base.

Roughly during the later middle ages they became a power to rival the Islamic states. The true source of Western dominance were rooted in the industrial revolution which gave them a significant edge against other advanced nations. Together with expansive imperialism European nations became the de facto power in many areas of the Earth, with consequences still felt today.

 

Thus, to understand the current situation in any country, it is important to track its history. As has been shown in this thread, religion (or any other single factor) is not going to be a good predictor for wealth.

Edited July 13, 2011 by CharonY