Deconstruction of the Arab- Islamic Mind

It is highly probable that the Arab_ Islamic civilization will totally collapse in the near future due to the fact that most Arabs and Muslims live in a state of super backwardness . In this paper , I will discuss one basic reason behind this situation.


There is a big difference between backwardness and super backwardness. Backward people are those who don t develop any useful invention for humanity , while super backward people are those who enhance backwardness through using science and technology in order to promote ignorance. Most Arabs and Muslims are now super backward because they rely on science and technology in order to spread ignorance and hatred. For example , nowadays each religious sect in the Islamic and Arab world has its own schools , universities , and media including T.V. channels , newspapers , and internet sites. And the main purpose of these institutions is to challenge and defeat the other religious sects. This is how most Muslims and Arabs today use science and technology in order to promote ignorance and hatred , and launch wars against each other and against the rest of the world.







Further , most of the literary works of contemporary Arabs and Muslims are opposed to science and logic. For instance , most of the currently published articles and books in the Arab and Islamic world fall in self- contradictions and circularities. This led most of the Arabs and Muslims to fail to construct meaningful propositions. This failure is a direct result of the rejection of science and logic. In the age of super backwardness , ignorance is the greatest virtue. Today , Arabs and Muslims are rewarded by their sects and regimes if they accept and promote ignorance , and they are punished otherwise. The major principle which controls the Arab and Muslim world at the present time is that ignorance is good and rewarding. This is why most of the Arabs and Muslims today are prisoners of their own thoughts , feelings and behaviors. In fact , they are living , or rather they are constantly dying , in the graves of their grandfathers.



There are many reasons behind the fact that most Arabs and Muslims live in a state of super backwardness. One main reason consists of the fact that most Arabs and Muslims believe that Arabic language is the source of knowledge. Since , from the perspective of the Arab_ Islamic mind , Arabic language is the source of knowledge , it follows that whatever the Arabs or Muslims utter in Arabic is a certainty from their perspective. This is why most of the Arabs and Muslims consider their beliefs to be certainties. But when one s beliefs are certainties , one can t doubt one s beliefs and replace them with other beliefs. This paves the way for rejecting others who possess different beliefs on the supposition that the others are totally mistaken in their belief system. The rejection of others led most of the Arabs and Muslims to rely on science and technology in order to promote their own certainties and defeat any other system of beliefs different from their own. All of this shows how the belief that language is the source of knowledge led to certainties which in turn led to the rejection of others and the usage of science and technology for spreading ignorance and antagonism.





According to most Muslims and Arabs , Arabic language is divine. The main reason behind this entrenched belief is the following : since Arabic language is the language of the Quran , and given that the Quran is divine from the Muslims point of view , it follows that Arabic language is also divine , i.e. , it is the language of God. Now , since Arabic language is divine from the perspective of the Arab_ Islamic mind , it follows that Arabic language is the source of knowledge otherwise it wouldn t be divine. This explains why the belief that Arabic language is the source of knowledge became a dominant belief controlling the Arabs and Muslims mentality.



The idea that Arabic language is the source of knowledge has destructive consequences. If Arabic language is the source of knowledge , then logic and science aren t. This is why most Arabs and Muslims today reject logic and science. The belief that Arabic language is the source of knowledge also leads to the failure of the Arab_ Islamic communication system. Since Arabic language ( as it is traditionally used by the Arabs ) is the source of knowledge from the point of view of most of the Arabs and Muslims , it follows that if I want to communicate with the Arabs and Muslims through a language different from theirs such as the scientific language , then my speech would be immediately rejected. This indicates a total failure of communication. The Arab_ Islamic mentality considers that Arabic language as it is used in the past is the producer of knowledge. Thus , any possible usage of Arabic language different from its past usage is rejected. This is why any attempt to introduce new scientific and philosophical contents to Arabic language and culture is accused of being an attempt to destroy an Islamic divine language. And hence , it is considered to be an attack against Islam. The fact that most of the Arabs and Muslims at the present time reject logical and scientific reasoning explains why there are just few scientists in the Arab and Islamic world today , and why the Arab and Islamic world is not currently contributing to science and philosophy. This same fact also explains why the current intellectual Arab and Islamic community is highly defective and ignorant of logic and science.


The super backwardness of most of the Arabs and Muslims today has its historical roots. When the Arab and Islamic world first encountered the discipline of logic as it is presented by the Greeks, many Arabs and Muslims called it Greek logic and rejected it on the basis of a specific argument developed by the 10th century Arab linguist Al- Sirafi. According to Al- Sirafi s argument , language is logic , and thus , Arabic language is the logic of the Arabs. Therefore , Al- Sirafi concludes , Greek logic is neither necessary nor useful for Arabs. In other words , logic is relative ; what is logical in a certain language isn t so in other languages. Therefore , from the perspective of the Arab and Islamic mind , Greek logic isn t a reliable instrument for obtaining knowledge. Yet the rejection of logic is nothing but the rejection of science and philosophy given that philosophy and science are based on logic. This shows that most Muslims and Arabs today reject science and philosophy because they reject logic in the first place. And they reject logic because , as Al- Sirafi s argument supposedly shows , logic as known to the Greeks isn t useful and reliable for Arabs and Muslims given that Arabs and Muslims have their own special logic residing in Arabic language. The argument of Al- Sirafi is still flourishing , and it is controlling the Arab and Islamic mind. And it is summarized in the famous and influential Islamic slogan : "whoever uses logic is an atheist". What makes Al- Sirafi s argument very powerful is the fact that in Arabic language the word " al-mantik" means logic and implies the concept of utterance, i.e. " al- notk ". Thus , " al-mantik " means both logic and language. This is probably why most of the Arabs consider that Arabic language is logic paving the way for the rejection of true logic and science.


The rejection of logic and science is a powerful meme , i.e. , it is a dominant cultural gene , which survived in the Arab and Islamic mind for centuries. Sometimes this cultural gene is not
activated , yet at other times it is. One way to see how this cultural gene survived is through looking at the widely accepted theory of language defended by almost all of the Arab and Muslim linguists , philosophers , and theologians.






Most of the Muslim theologians , linguists and philosophers embrace the same theory of language which implicitly or explicitly states that language is the source of knowledge. For example , the philosophers Al- Farabi , Ibn Sina , and Ibn Taymiyyah agree on accepting the same analysis of language. According to their theory , language is the instrument or device which refers to meanings , and meanings refer to facts , hence language is the device which successfully refers to actual facts. Now , since language is always successful in referring to the facts of the world , it follows that language is the source of knowledge. This is how the previous theory of language implies that language is the source of knowledge. But if language such as Arabic language is the provider of knowledge , then Greek logic and Western science aren t the sources of knowledge. This is how the rejection of logic and science as a cultural gene survived in the Arab and Islamic mind and became dominant. It survived in virtue of the widely accepted theory of language.



Even the 11th century Arab and Muslim linguist Al-Jurjani accepts the previous view of language. According to Al-Jurjani , the function of language consists of expressing and communicating meanings. But , for him , meanings actually refer to the facts of the world. It follows , from the perspective of Al-Jurjani s theory , language is always successful in referring to the facts of the world, and hence , language is the source of knowledge. In fact , Al-Jurjani distinguishes between mental meanings and imaginary meanings. Yet , from his point of view , mental meanings directly refer to facts , while imaginary meanings such as metaphors indirectly refer to actual facts because they imply certain mental meanings. Moreover , since most Arabs and Muslims consciously or unconsciously believe that language , namely Arabic language , is the reliable producer of knowledge , it is natural that they would use Arabic language in order to obtain knowledge. And this is exactly what they did. For example , the theologian Ibn Taymiyyah relied on language as a source of knowledge in order to develop and defend many of his theories. In one instance , he presented the following argument against the theory of divine emanation : if the theory of



emanation which says that the universe was created through divine
emanation is true , then the world was created spontaneously by God. But the concept of spontaneous creation is not part of language as we know it. Therefore , Ibn Taymiyyah concludes , the universe wasn t created through divine emanation. This is a clear example of how Arabs and Muslims use language as the main source of knowledge.



But why aren t the Muslims and Arabs able to free themselves from this predicament ? It seems that the answer lies in the fact that , from the perspective of Islam , Arabic language as it is expressed in the Quran , i.e. , as it is used in the past , is the only medium through which Muslims can communicate with God. Mohammad didn t deliver any other medium between his followers and God. This means that Arabic language as it is used in the past is similar to Christ in Christianity. Thus , to replace Arabic language as it is used in the past by a modern and scientific Arabic language is equivalent to the destruction of Islam. This is why most Muslims and Arabs aren t able to free themselves from their deceptive mental mechanisms which dictate that Arabic language ( as it is used in the past ) is the source of knowledge , and hence science and logic are useless in this regard.



In conclusion , the rejection of logic and science as a cultural gene was sleeping when the Arab mathematician Al- Khwarizmi invented Algebra. But it was awake and powerful when the 11th century Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali rejected philosophical reasoning when science was part of philosophy. Today , most of the Arabs and Muslims are suffering from super backwardness , and they are in need of intellectual therapy.

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