The Mission of the Arab Thinker

"The most comprehensive, the frankest, and the deepest analysis of the Arab situation today..." — with such a description the press introduced the book of Dr. Fayez Sayegh. The mission of the Arab thinker is a responsibility borne by everyone who has become aware, or who has risen up to call for sound and upright guidance.

The author has put the dots on the letters of our present position, social and political; and in his analysis of the current situation he has pointed to the corners of weakness, and to the flaws capable of shaking this society that stands upon the shoulders of those who believe in the message of truth and of giving!

The reader cannot but stand astonished when he finds himself before the mirror of his own self: he is responsible toward society, toward himself; responsible for cooperation and solidarity to raise the level of his surroundings! The author shakes out his pen to waken this thinking citizen, and to warn him of the dangers surrounding him, through which all that his hands have built may be torn down.

Diagnosing the disease does not avail to cure the sick man; and so the author points to the practical, efficacious remedy. He aims at practical, effective guidance and at realistic thinking, of the kind that works upon souls, upon texts, and upon deeds! He feels his way into the problem, lives the perplexity in which Arab thought is now floundering, and then stretches out his hand toward the renaissance, toward a new dawn!

It is worth mentioning that this book is adorned with realism: the writer set out boldly and frankly what he wanted, then plunged into the heart of the subject with the confidence of one who believes in his own capacities and in the capacities of the sons of his society! For the nation's problem is the problem of every one of its sons; and in this book is an exposition, and a solution, of the fundamental problem rooted deep in the souls of the nation's sons.