[ahmedk92]

Islam's view on work is balanced. Simply it's a mean to live financially independent, not a life purpose. This idea can be seen in the commitment to the five must-be-on-time prayers during the day. No work should cause the prayers to be postponed.

Ironically, through the last century, there is a "modern" Islamic speech that preaches "hard work ethics" (the western way) among other western values. It will be funny if the west starts to morally rethink their life style, while the Islamic world is about to complete the low-morale modernization process.

[cbeach]

That "balance" doesn't seem to be contributing much to the economies of Muslim-majority countries, and their living standards, though, does it?

Except for those nations sitting on abundant oil reserves, the Muslim world is chaotic, unproductive and has terrible human rights / freedom of expression.

[sshumaker]

You have to be very careful to tease out correlation from causation here. In the Middle Ages the Islamic world was significantly ahead of the West in these regards. For a bunch of historical reasons (ineffectiveness of Ottoman Empire for several hundred years, World War I) most of the Islamic world is indeed behind first-world countries.

But that's also like blaming Christianity for the problems in Central America or Central Africa. Religion is only a small factor.