The Challenge Facing the Arabs
The challenge facing the Arabs today is their share of the broader challenge confronting humanity, but it is more urgent and more pressing for several reasons, the most significant of which are two:
First, the Arabs inhabit a region that is the navel of the world, where the three continents - Europe, Asia, and Africa - meet. It is a region where history has been made since the dawn of time and continues to be made. All civilizations have arisen in, or have been connected to, this region, particularly those that seek to balance material and spiritual needs. These civilizations have sought to provide bread for human survival while simultaneously striving for human freedom, recognizing that life cannot be sustained by bread alone. As Christ said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4), or as Muhammad stated: “This worldly life is a means to the Hereafter.”
Second, the Arabs - unlike other peoples - are the people of the Book, the people of the Quran. The Quran is the Spirit of God, and when this spirit is breathed into the massive mechanized civilization of the present-day West, it will bring it back to life, restore its balance, and enable it to lead humanity toward peace. A material Western civilization infused with the Islamic spirit is the new civilization that can enable humanity to achieve the intellectual unity required by its newly unified environment. The convergence of these two unities will create organizational harmony, upon which balanced justice will be established, and through balanced justice, peace will prevail on earth.
However, the Arabs today live on the margins of life. They live off the superficial layers of Western civilization - “and if its core is corrupt, how can its superficial layer be any better?” - and off superficial layers of Islam. The wheel of time has turned, and the Arab region has become the stage for a new civilizational struggle, evident in the heartbreaking events unfolding between the Arabs and the Jews.
These painful events are, in reality, the labor pains accompanying the birth of a new civilization in the cradle of civilizations. The Arabs are the midwives through whom this new civilization will be delivered, yet they remain oblivious to their role. They believe that Israel is the cause of their problem, not realizing that Israel is a result, not a cause. The true cause is that the Arabs are not occupying their rightful place in contemporary history, even though they are living through a period marking a fundamental transformation in human life on this planet - a transformation unprecedented in human history.
This transformation marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. It marks the end of humanity’s childhood and the beginning of its maturity. This is what we referred to when discussing the challenge posed by the contemporary environment to humanity today.
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, just as your ancestors entered it in the seventh century, illuminating the world of their time with the dawn of a new civilization. Otherwise, you will be cast out of history for the remainder of time.
This is the challenge facing the Arabs today, and Israel is merely the gauntlet of that challenge, thrown down in Palestine. It was not thrown by Western colonialism, but by a force for which Western colonialism is merely a tool. This same force challenged the Arabs in the seventh century before they entered history, saying: (“So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior; and Allah is with you, and He will never deprive you of the reward of your deeds. This worldly life is but amusement and diversion. And if you believe and fear Allah, He will give you your rewards and not ask you for your wealth. If He should ask you for it and press you, you would withhold, and He would expose your unwillingness. Here you are - those invited to spend in the cause of Allah - but among you are those who withhold. And whoever withholds only withholds from himself. And Allah is the Free of need, while you are the needy. And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be like you”) (47:35–38).
This is the same challenge facing the Arabs today as it did their ancestors in the past. Either they enter the history of their time by turning toward Allah, or they will be cast out of history forever: “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be like you” (47:38).
