Secularism And The Crisis Of Arab Mind, Fouad Zakariyya As A Sample

Abstract

The research seeks to study secularism as one of the most important concepts and the most controversial and circulated in contemporary Arab thought, which has been linked to the philosophical dimension and the denial of the unseen in all its theological and metaphysical forms, which led to its adoption at times and to its absolute rejection in many cases. Rejection of Western thought and its concepts, sticking to the principles and foundations of (religion) under the pretext of preserving the Arab identity and the heritage of the ancestors, secularism, in light of the extremist fundamentalist discourse, was accompanied by disbelief, atheism, and alienation from society, and with what Arabs and Muslims suffered from sectarian and sectarian fighting and entrenchment, in addition to backwardness and successive defeats in the face of the material and scientific prosperity witnessed by Western civilization, the question became urgent: Do we reject secularism because it is a Western commodity? Or do we remain on the past and the legacy of the predecessors?

In order to answer such questions, we find it necessary to review the theses of Fouad Zakaria  and his criticisms of the Islamic discourse in order to reach satisfactory answers.