Mohamed Abed Al-Jabri's death deserves a lengthy presentation of what he has left. However, in the available space that we have, we could note that Al-Jabri, who delved into the problems of the present and the reasons behind the failure of the Arab renaissance in the Arab-Islamic heritage, shared a number of attitudes with another deceased person, Edward Said, despite the differences between the two men's interests. Al-Jabri spent the largest share of his practical life studying the texts of Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, Al-Shatibi, Al-Farabi and Abd al-Hamid al-Katib (noting that he was interested in the latter's book “The Arab Moral Mind”) among others. He came to a number of conclusions that can be summed up in the fact that the Arab mind is structurally and configurationally damaged (in “the structure of the Arab mind”) and. When Islam allowed that mind to get rid of its structural damages and gave it the opportunity to embrace the worlds of ideology and science, factors from the Hermetic Gnostic East interfered, destroying the reasoning components the Arab mind, in favor of the facts pertaining to superstition, myths and the hostility towards the mind. The Arabs and Muslims thus returned to an ongoing and long era of decadence and ignorance… This is a very brief presentation - which does not pay off Al-Jabri's research work - of what he concluded. The solution, which Al-Jabri suggests for the Arabs and Muslims to end their historical predicament, lies in resuming the ideological march that reached its peak, according to him, with the achievements of Ibn Rushd and Al-Shatibi in Morocco, after the East surrendered to a state of lack-of-knowledge. Alongside studying Arab-Islamic heritage, Edward Said embarked on Western literature and humanities, to reach conclusions that he included in his two famous books: “Orientalism” and “Culture and Imperialism.” Said assumes that the West, driven by its colonization interests, has embedded in the minds of its citizens and elites, through Oriental Studies and a multi-level system of literary and cultural texts, a stereotype of the Arab, Muslim and Eastern person in general. This stereotype is characterized by irrationality and lusty feelings, in what ranks him below the Western citizen who enjoys discipline in the context of reason, logic, and a high-level sense of humanity. This justifies the latter's manipulation of the former and his actions to make him a follower, control his wealth, and send him to exile to the extend of physically exterminating him after having destroyed him intellectually and culturally. It is important to mention here that the impact of Al-Jabri and Said on the Arab culture and on the self-image the Arabs and Muslims have of themselves, goes far beyond the idea saying that these discussions are and will remain restricted to a narrow academic and elite framework. A big part of what the Arab media – which is addressed to the largest segments of citizens between the ocean and the Gulf, relies on the visions of Al-Jabri and Said, regarding the past, the relationship with the West and the stances about others. Accordingly, their role in formulating the daily Arab political position is bigger than expected. The importance of ideas here is not measured by the sales numbers of books written by the two figures. Despite the different interests, methodology and tools the approaches of Al-Jabri and Said, they both share a stance, which is seemingly very dangerous. For instance, they deny the domestic Arab-Islamic factors that led to this decline or stagnancy before the Western military and cultural invasion. Each of them refused, on his own, to discuss what has practically prevented breaking the wall of backwardness, ever since the attempts to achieve an Arab renaissance in the 19th century,. While Al-Jabri was about to tackle, more than Said, the domestic factor, while the latter found no one but the West to hold it responsible for the repercussions of the tyranny, poverty, and oppression of the Arabs, they both agreed, at the end of the day, on absolving one's nature from for its sins and mistakes. This is a clear sign of a childish mentality that refuses to take responsibility for one's actions.
