In the case of Afghanistan, even if you were a Muslim, it would be pretty self-evident that Afghanistan is fucked.
(I certainly don't consider Kuwait, UAE, Qatar Oman, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, etc. to be failed; I'd say SA, Malaysia and Bahrain have some serious problems but are otherwise fine, etc. Pakistan is dangerously close to failed, and Sudan has some serious issues; Syria is pretty clearly over the line, along with Somalia and Afghanistan.)
Islam didn't have a whole lot to do with why Yemen is or has been a failed state, despite being Islamic. The rise in Islamic violence there is pretty recent; it was mainly a cold war thing combined with a country where everyone is a drug addict (khat).
Congo - not so Islamic. Or Angola during the Cold War. I'd argue that the cold war was a much bigger factor than Islam; Islam and Islamism only became an issue due to the cold war (where Muslim Brotherhood was somewhat Soviet allied in Egypt, and US/Pakistan/ISI funded the Taliban/Muj/etc. in Afghanistan due to the cold war. Before that, we had "Arab Nationalism" which was also co-opted by socialists/communists (mainly because the initial guys were themselves socialists, so it was pretty natural; same thing happened in India until the 1990s)
"Bad leadership" seems like an important factor in countries where neither the Cold War nor Islam were big factors (Haiti seems pretty close to failed...)
As Foreign Policy measures it, it seems like being in Africa is a bigger predictor than being Islamic, actually, too.
(I certainly don't consider Kuwait, UAE, Qatar Oman, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, etc. to be failed; I'd say SA, Malaysia and Bahrain have some serious problems but are otherwise fine, etc. Pakistan is dangerously close to failed, and Sudan has some serious issues; Syria is pretty clearly over the line, along with Somalia and Afghanistan.)
Islam didn't have a whole lot to do with why Yemen is or has been a failed state, despite being Islamic. The rise in Islamic violence there is pretty recent; it was mainly a cold war thing combined with a country where everyone is a drug addict (khat).
Congo - not so Islamic. Or Angola during the Cold War. I'd argue that the cold war was a much bigger factor than Islam; Islam and Islamism only became an issue due to the cold war (where Muslim Brotherhood was somewhat Soviet allied in Egypt, and US/Pakistan/ISI funded the Taliban/Muj/etc. in Afghanistan due to the cold war. Before that, we had "Arab Nationalism" which was also co-opted by socialists/communists (mainly because the initial guys were themselves socialists, so it was pretty natural; same thing happened in India until the 1990s)
"Bad leadership" seems like an important factor in countries where neither the Cold War nor Islam were big factors (Haiti seems pretty close to failed...)
As Foreign Policy measures it, it seems like being in Africa is a bigger predictor than being Islamic, actually, too.