Bob, I'm just saying that they admire the west's technological achievements. Narrowing down their pursuits to some religious dogmatism certainly did them no favors in that regard.
Nomad Bin Laden certainly is a good example of ascetism. So are most of the archetypesque "leaders", Moktadasadr & co.... They don't live for anything but their duty. Bread and water sort of livelihood.
I don't mind your ranting, I agree with almost all of it in fact, but I don't know what you mean by "hubris [...]", could you give a brief example?
Denholm, someone was bound to devise a base 10 scheme, and it wasn't a discovery that favored Arab culture more than any other... We don't owe electronics or the rest of those examples you cite to Arabs.