As a sidenote, Egypt is technically in Africa and is considered part of Middle East. Mesopotamia is part of Middle East. And these were the places where most of the basic features on which much later civilizations, including our current global, mostly western-based civilization, developed from.
Sure, writing was invented independently elsewhere, and Ancient Middle Eastern societies also borrowed from other area (the wheel, for example, IIRC), but hey, they have been among the most advanced parts of the world, tech-wise, for some MILLENNIA.
The backwardness of the Muslim World in general face to the West was not particularly evident until the seventeenth century. I'm not so expert about non-Muslim Africa, but there are some very respectable civilizations there as well, and since quite a longtime.