In each region of the world various factors are holding them back. In Pakistan mullahism is holding it back. Referance use Turkey as country that purged it's mullahs - then placed them at orders of the state via the diyanat system and result that country is the most advanced in the Muslim world.
You know what, if people want to progress, they will progress, even if their land doesn't grow a single kernel of Wheat. No ideology, no system will be able to hold them back.
And if people don't want to advance, they don't want to progress, then they will not grow, even if their land is feeding a good percentage of the world.
As I mentioned before, and I am mentioning it again, it's in the mentality of the people. It's not about religion. Two world wars took place in the absence of religion. It's the ultimate greed of humans, that leads them to use things differently, wrongly. Even if we get rid of religion, trust me, people will find something else. More mean, more focused, more deadly.
There is an animal in every human, and religion is here to control it. You might hate religion, but you have not seen the side of humans that religion has been able to control till now. I have seen it. Maybe you also have. But I feel it, I appreciate it.