The Challenge and the Arab Confusion
This book adopts a fundamental approach in analyzing and diagnosing the devastating military defeat and setback that the Arabs experienced in June 1967. From the outset, it asserts: “The problem facing the Arabs today is not, as they think, the issue of Palestine. The problem is far greater and more dangerous. The serious problem is that the current stage of human community development on this planet has presented the Arabs with a challenge they have never faced before in such a decisive manner. Palestine is merely the place where the gauntlet of this challenge has been thrown.”
The book then proceeds, with remarkable clarity of vision and courage, to explain the dimensions of this challenge: “It is as if the logic of contemporary human life on this planet is telling the Arabs: You must now enter history in the twentieth century as your predecessors entered it in the seventh century, bringing with them the dawn of a new civilization that illuminated the world of their time. Otherwise, you will be cast out of history for the rest of time.”
“This is the challenge facing the Arabs today, just as it faced their predecessors in the past: Either you enter the history of your era by turning toward Allah, or you will be cast out of history forever.”
The Arabs were confounded by this challenge and sought to confront it with inappropriate tools, believing it to be the State of Israel and Western nations. They interpreted their defeats against Israel as the result of the corruption of Arab rulers and Western collusion against Arab peoples. What they failed to realize is that the ailment is not limited to the corruption of institutions or individuals; it is deeply rooted in the very structure of contemporary Arab life, which rests on superficial layers of Western civilization and superficial layers of Islam.
By presenting the challenge at this civilizational level, the book aims to establish a radical break with all approaches that merely pander emotions or flatter the false sense of Arab pride, focusing on the symptoms instead of addressing the underlying disease.
