Which Has Caused More Harm to the Middle-East?

[Ayn Rand]

I'm seeing a distinct ignorance of the Middle East in this thread. The Middle East is one of the richest, fastest-growing and most powerful regions in the World. It is on an upward trajectory and over the last decade, things have improved massively.

As for the factors mentioned in the poll, I fail to see how any of them have been consistently negative or harmful in any way. Islam and oil have been a great asset to the area and will continue to be for the next few decades.

 

[Zardnaar]

Resource depletion and most middle east countries can't feed themselves. When the oil runs out they are really gonna be screwed.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

but because muslim culture in the beginnings and at the peak was less religious, less muslim than it is today, at least judging on the lives of umayyad, abbasid caliphs and the lives of arabic poets. Who were, notabene, ruling an empire whose population was mostly not islamic.

But the problem was that while arabic/islamic culture settled and institutionalised, it was becoming less and less open, less tolerant towards other religions, towards allien knowledge (esp. since at some point they were really at the peak), towards sin.

I argued about this with Masada a while back in the History forum as I shared this impression, but received a very firm opposition by Masada.
I am curious about his response.