Arab heritage and culture are experiencing a chronic crisis, Anyone seeking the causes of this crisis will find them in the continuation of the factors that dominate the culture and heritage in this region, which has known nothing but injustice and darkness for the past fourteen centuries, with the exception of very short periods of light and enlightenment, As an exception, one can mention the caliphate of Al-Ma’mun, which was characterized by a great scientific and enlightenment movement, and by practices that we do not know the like of even today, We do not know today a step of the size and quality that movements like the Mu’tazilites or thought in general enjoyed in terms of freedom, In addition, there was the rationality of the Al-Ma’mun period, which extended for about two decades, and which acknowledged the creation of the Qur’an, The Qur’an was considered a creation on earth and not revealed from heaven, and we do not know to this day who wrote it, It seems that its writers were many, which explains the difference in its formulation styles and its contradictions, That period also witnessed the preference of reason over tradition, and other matters of intellectual consolidation, which led to a methodology that is considered a model even for this era.
Al-Ma’mun died, and with him died rationality and logic, What remained was the rule of the text, predestination, and the movement of fabricating standardized hadiths for the sake of self-interest,The terrorism of thought remained, which claimed the Mu’tazilites as victims, in addition to Ibn Rushd, Ibn Bajjah, Ibn Sina, and others, Silence and paralysis of the mind still prevail, which was led by Ibn Abbas and Ibn Taymiyyah, reaching Ibn Baz, Al-Buti, and Al-Qaradawi, who established mediocrity, persisted in killing thought and reason, and established corruption, favoritism, and the rule of the individual, then the dominance of rigid texts, which abolished dialogue and the dialectic of history, They enshrined the comprehensiveness of the Qur’an, which abolished the function of reason in understanding intellectual, scientific, social, and political phenomena.
The peoples of the region are now in a state of stupid polarization! Generally, Darwin, Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, Adonis, Ansi al-Hajj, Said Akl, Maroun Ghosn, Sayyid al-Qimni, Freud, and others are being insulted by the sheikhly religious institutions, which follow Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Abbas, al-Ghazali, Wahhabism, Khomeinism, and others, as if the Caliph al-Mutawakkil has been entrusted with the guardianship of the faithful now, Just as al-Mutawakkil and his ilk did to the Mu’tazilites, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Bajjah, and Ibn Sina, so too do the dominant powers now do to the thought of George Tarabishi, Nizar Qabbani, Adonis, al-Afif al-Akhdar, Hamad Abu Zayd, Taha Hussein, and others, Most or almost all of these thinkers died in exile, after being rejected by the partnership of political-religious fundamentalism committed to harmonious unity, sanctification, totalitarianism, theocracy, and metaphysical political-religious concepts, then sectarianism, infidle, and backwardness, etc.
Al-Mutawakkil and his ilk, before and after him, and until now, have stifled the peoples, and have enshrined the hegemony of a calcified heritage that has no concern other than going backwards, by means that cannot be called thought or culture, but rather reactionism, obstinacy, and surrender to backwardness, Thought is creative, it creates the new and better than the old. Past-oriented thinking is not renewal, Under the influence of past-oriented heritage, peoples roll downwards towards decline and extinction.
Even Western thought failed to save the peoples of this region, because the afflicted region categorically rejected salvation, deeming it a defilement and a germ-like contamination of the outdated past. Germs like Hegel, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, and many others are worthless in the presence of the complete and perfect Quran, suitable for all times and places, which offers solutions to every dilemma, It is absurd, even heretical, to act upon Hegel’s assertion that the history of freedom is the history of reason and rationality, It is equally absurd and heretical to promote doubt as Descartes and Ibn Rushd did. The Book of God states that doubt is heresy, and that faith devoid of understanding is the path to life, Doubt is from Satan, and its cure is clear, When you doubt, my believing brother, all you need to do is say, “I seek refuge in God from the accursed Satan,” and the doubt will dissipate, Therefore, we should not doubt Adonis’s claim that these peoples will become extinct, have already become extinct, or are on the verge of extinction, Are Adonis, Descartes, or even Ibn Rushd less intellectually capable than many others? If the prophets or charlatans promote the disease of “epilepsy” as a divine miracle, is it not logical for Ibn Rushd to ask about the meaning of God creating a mind for man and then preventing him from using it, i.e., from practicing rationality?
Doubt is a philosophical concept that raises questions about the nature of human knowledge and perception, and is thus considered a means of approaching the truth, Doubt is not a means of distorting reality; it is the opposite of illusion, which distorts reality, Illusion is a breeding ground for delusion and narcissism, while reason is dedicated to interpreting the world through logic, experience, and doubt, followed by questioning, criticism, and clear vision, which is obscured by illusion, representing a barrier or dam to rational certainty, which doubt does not dispel. Doubt is not a state of uncertainty, but rather a path to wisdom, as Socrates said, and an expression of existence, as Descartes claimed: “I think, therefore I am.” And whoever thinks doubts, but does not imagine!
