Oh finally someone remembered Central Asians, sorry I can’t resist.
The phrase 'InShallah' seems to occur frequently whenever desired outcomes are being talked about. 'God Willing' is used it would seem to push responsibility onto God, when human beings should be getting something done.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with eastern cultures in general and especially not their euphemism. Iranian taxi drivers and shop assistants will initially decline payment until further insistence. Do they mean what they say? Hell no!
It strikes me as a great Get Out of Jail Free card used to avoid doing anything constructive and inducing apathy and fatalism.
You cannot have apathy and fatalism in Islam. (You can actually find more fatalism in Ecclesiastes.)Islam gives you long lists of things to do from dawn to dust, from birth to death. And Islam clearly list Jihad as one of the five pillars. And I assure you that is considered a very constructive (or destructive) thing. And also Islam is against monasticism. As for Get Out of Jail Free card, I can think of none better than the tradition of absolution.
It is starkly different to the Christian understanding of personal responsibility to use our God given powers and faculties to 'do the Lord's work'.
Indeed Christian crusaders and missionaries across five continents have been diligently doing the Lord’s work just as well. But did you just list “literacy, government, industry, science”as Lord’s work? Does anyone need any more examples or Christianity getting in the way of these aspects of human developments?
Don’t forget Christianity is the first major religion of Gnosticism, and all the colorful apocalyptic beliefs. Don’t forget how ardently it encourage you to forsake all that is in this life for the next. "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple ... So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26-27, 33)
I know this is a big generalization ... but the backwardness of the N African, Middle Eastern and Central Asian Muslim world in literacy, government, industry, science etc must be down to something cultural like this.
Actually Central Asian and other ex-USSR countries are among those with
highest literacy rate in the world. Please tell me therefore you believe in the superiority of communism.