You should know that the secularism in Turkey is different than the rest of the world . In Turkey , secularism means that religious people muslims should be shit on them as much as possible . How do you think AKP and Erdogan who is a religious and has an islamist viewpoint was able to stay in power since 2002 ? It ' s because the secular goverments spent all their time with shitting on muslims while not caring about the economy or country at all . I mean , did seculars try to send a rocket to space but the hijab prevented it from reaching the space ? Pakistan , as an islamic state , produces nukes you know . Having an Islamist government doesn ' t mean you are doomed to fail economically or in any other way . If you , as a goverment spend your time with shitting on muslims in the name of secularism , the next thing you get will be an islamist government . Turkey ' s secularists reap what they sow . Say what you want about AKP and Erdogan , but economicwise if Turkey was able to become what it is today from 2001 economic crisis to producing their own tanks , warplanes , weapons etc . it is thanks to the AKP government . TLDR It wasn ' t the lack of religion that brought an economic crisis , it was the incompetent leaders who did nothing but to try to protect secularism in the most inefficient way possible .