Why Muslims are backward

I was asked at Qatar, where I went recently,  by some people (mostly Keralite Muslims ) why most Muslims in India are relatively backward.

 I replied that it is because they are still under the grip of their clerics whose vested interest is to keep Muslims backward. These clerics have a large grip over the Muslim votes, and so politicians pamper them. They will not allow Muslim community to modernize by abolishing burqa and the outdated, archaic, feudal sharia law, particularly oral talaq.

 Half of Muslims are women, and every married Muslim woman has a damocles sword hanging over her head, the sword of oral talaq.

 So if Muslims want to progress they must persuade their women not to wear the burqa, which is a stupid feudal custom, and demand uniform civil code, as in all modern countries