In How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too) (Regnery, 2011) , David P. Goldman (blogger “Spengler”), offers an explanation of the difficulties the Middle Eastern Muslim world experiences with science achievement. The root of the problem, he says, is theological:
A religion that abolishes cause and effect does not naturally incline to innovation in natural science, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the previous fecundity of Islamic science died up within generation after the twelfth-century triumph of al-Ghazali’s occasionalist view of creation. That philosophy gives rise not to scientific achievement an technological advance, but to th mad, jinn-haunted “science” of Turkish Islamist-in-exile Fethullah Gulen. (p. 147)
Which poses a paradox to Islam. Allah is a god who offers not succor, but success. Yet the full acceptance of Allah’s capricious power over every occurrence at every instant hardly promotes success in a science-driven world.
Good luck sorting that one out.