The 'extinct' Arabs?

Adonis

(Image from Encyclopedia of the Orient)

I'm only asking what this means.

Our latter-day Spengler -- who calls himself "Spengler" but should not be conflated with last century's Spengler -- has recently written a column, "Are the Arabs already extinct? " (Asia Times Online, May 8, 2007), on the Syrian Arab poet "Adonis" (the pen-name for Ali Ahmad Said, and thus not to be confused with the mythical Adonis), who had himself earlier stated of Arabs (cf. MEMRI, March 11, 2006):

[W]e Arabs are in a phase of extinction...

I, along with Spengler, ask what Adonis means by this. In his own words, Adonis explains:

We have become extinct. We have the quantity. We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity, and the capacity to change its world.

Why have the Arabs, supposedly, lost this creative capacity? Adonis suggests:

I believe it has to do with the concept of "oneness", which is reflected -- in practical or political terms -- in the concept of the hero, the savior, or the leader. This concept offers an inner sense of security to people who are afraid of freedom. Some human beings are afraid of freedom.

I don't know the Arabic word that Adonis used for "oneness" in this context, but this English term "oneness" sounds suspiciously like the the translation often employed for "Tawhid," the Islamic concept of the "oneness" of Allah. So, was Adonis provocatively using this theological concept and implicitly criticizing it? That would appear to be the case, for he adds that it gives rise to a slave mentality:

Just as Allah solves all our problems, the dictator will solve all our problems.

How did Allah's "oneness" result in this? To clarify this, Spengler cites other words from Adonis, an essay, "Poetry and Apoetical Culture," from his book The Pages of Day and Night:

When this divine Revelation came to take the place of poetic inspiration, it claimed to be the sole source of knowledge, and banished poetry and poets from their kingdom. Poetry was no longer the word of truth, as the pre-Islamic poets had claimed it was. Nevertheless ... Islam did not suppress poetry as a form and mode of expression. Rather, it nullified poetry's role and cognitive mission, endowing it with a new function: to celebrate and preach the truth introduced by the Koranic Revelation. Islam thus deprived poetry of its earliest characteristics -- intuition and the power of revelation and made it into a media tool . . . . Poetry in Arab society has languished and withered precisely insofar as it has placed itself at the service of religiosity, proselytism and political and ideological commitments. (101-102)

Spengler observes that in saying this, namely, that Islam forces everything human into the divine mold of "oneness" because the Qur'anic revelation is "the sole source of knowledge" (emphasis mine), "Adonis makes the remarkable claim that the nature of Koranic revelation destroys the possibility of poetry, and with it the possibility of life." Spengler then quotes further from Adonis to back up this observation:

The political-religious institution exercised its power as a faithful guardian of the Koranic Revelation. It possessed the absolute certitude that the Revelation spoke and wrote Man and the universe clearly, definitively and without error or imperfection. This certitude, in turn, demanded that the Muslim individual be formed around a faith in an absolute text, one which allowed no interrogation that might give rise on any doubt whatsoever. Under such conditions, alienation is inevitable; the skeptical individual no longer has the right to be a member of the society.

Because Islam -- the last message sent by God to mankind -- has placed the final seal on the Divine Word, successive words are incapable of bringing humankind anything new. A new message would imply that the Islamic message did not say everything, that it is imperfect. Therefore the human word must, on an emotional level, continually eulogize and celebrate that message; on an intellectual level, a fortiori it can only serve as an explication. (102-103)

There is no room, it seems, for anything else in Islam.

Spengler's post on Adonis, incidentally, became a hot issue for Robert Spencer, who has written a number of books critical of Islam and who hosts the site Jihad Watch to keep an eye on Islamic radicalism, because Spengler happened to call Spencer's approach "sophomoric" for its manner of stringing together quotes from the Qur'an, and he insisted that Islam has to be understood from within. Spengler's critique is not entirely fair to Spencer, but I don't want to get sucked into that debate. I mention this merely because Spengler paid Spencer the courtesy of responding in a comment to Spencer's irate post, and in that comment made some further, interesting observations:

I do not mean to say that one has to be a Muslim in order to understand Islam. Kierkegaard is one of the most perceptive writers on Jewish faith (if we believe Heschel and Wyschogrod), while Rosenzweig is one of the best theologians of Christianity. What I mean, and have said in print on numerous occasions, is that the existential theology of Kierkegaard, Barth, Rosenzweig and -- yes -- Ratzinger provides keys to understanding what Islam actually is, and how Muslims actually think. My objection to Mr. Spencer is precisely what he concedes: that is a long time since he read Kierkegaard. Actually, I would recommend beginning with Rosenzweig and working backwards. This is a very simple point: to approach a religious conflict without the tools of theology is like going to a gunfight without a gun. Otherwise, criticism of Islam is likely to be arbitrary, superficial and impoverished.

The trouble is that apart from Pope Benedict, who threw a few pebbles into the minefield and then backed off, Western theologians have not had the temerity to pursue the direction of theological analysis that Rosenzweig set forth. The heavy divisions of the West have sat in reserve, leaving lightly-armed skirmishers like Mr. Spencer to throw themselves into the breach with inadequate intellectual armament. I elaborated this point here.

I'll have to take a futher look at Spengler and what he writes about his own approach to understanding Islam (as well as look into his reading list), but he raises an important issue. The Islamist use of the Qur'an must follow in some manner from the existential conditions of life under Islam, which in turn is connected to Islamic theology. If one is intending to provide a critique of Islamism (or of Islam itself), then one needs a sophisticated understanding of Islam's intellectual foundations as these are rooted in Muslims' existential needs.

I realize that this sounds vague, but it deserves following up.