Your answers are very nice (better than I could manage), but I suspect there are a lot more non-religion answers to these questions. Oil and scarcity of resources (other than oil) are two that come to mind. I've seen report of the development potential of the middle east/surroundings cited that basically stated oil as one barrier to development (don't remember the source at all, sorry). Overpopulation and too many (unemployed!) men is supposedly a big problem in Pakistan and other places (no job, no purpose and starving? Feel like dying gloriously instead?).
The main problem would still probably be the oil. It supports local dictators and makes foreign powers interested in bad ways. (no, this isn't about US in Iraq, it goes back way earlier than that!)