The birth of Baghdad was a landmark for world civilisation

For example, it's likely that much of the scholarship of western antiquity was lost in the closely spaced sacks of Constantinople and Baghdad. The Mongol destruction was particularly thorough in their destruction of scholarship: "The books from Baghdad’s libraries were thrown into the Tigris River in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books."[1]

[1] http://lostislamichistory.com/mongols/

http://www.dancarlin.com/product-tag/mongols/ (free at the moment apparently, good listen)

But then, the arab world is a joke right now, it's hard to really point out what the center of the arab world is, other than to really just look at a proxy of who has had the most oil money and oil geopolitical relations with the west the past 50 years, which are the places you mentioned. Take away the oil and these cities are nothing, attract no academics or entrepreneurs, engineers, medical professionals or journalists. As for artists, writers, film makers, it's tiny.

Of course after some time, an oil-subsidised society attracts enough talent to be meaningful without oil, but if you visit these places I still think you'll find a pretty empty place that runs on fossil riches. Although to their credit, they're aware of this and are trying to diversify.

Take Abu Dhabi, they mentioned having a GDP larger than any arab country save for Suadi Arabia. It's economy consists 85% of oil exports, a place of 2 million people. To act like that's some kind of cultural capital like the journalist does is a joke.

It's a fluff piece by a journalist from the Emirates if you ask me.