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interview with muhammad shahrur 521DFE: Gellner writes that Islam is so pervasive and powerful in the Muslimworld that it has blocked people from developing the sorts of reasoning andcivil society that have emerged in the West.MS: I agree with that. It is our fault and the West has exploited ourweaknesses neatly. The West is smart. We didn’t criticize ourmethod of knowledge and reasoning when Napoleon came intoEgypt. Instead, we turned our backs and said that we have topreserve our identity and our own sciences. Some of our religiousscholars meant by this everything that was developed in the firstthree centuries after the death of the Prophet, that the knowledgeand reasoning present in that period constituted the core of ouridentity.America, England, and France didn’t create anything new inthe Arab world. They just read it well, accepted it as it was, andexploited it for their own ends. America didn’t do anything newin the Arab world but she knew our mentality and how we dothings. The Arab world was created before England and beforeAmerica but they exploited us.Now, if you have a new mentality according to my thesis, youwill have new people. Then it will be difficult for the West toexploit us. We’ll have a new method to deal with other people.We’ll be scientific and have a civil society, and people will learnto deal with us in a different way.I hope that the Arab world will change by itself. We cannotafford not to remain as we are, and I hope that the British andAmerican attitude to our region of the world also changes. If oursociety and habits of thought change, then we can match the restof the world. I know that. Pragmatism will help [laughter]. That’sright.DFE: Let us consider another type of change. Your first book took eight years towrite. Now you have completed a third book, and envisage a fourth. Howhas writing and publication changed how you think about yourself?MS: I am changing and my thinking is making progress. I am nowbeginning to see the product of my thinking over the past twentyyears. I have developed my method of analysis, and thereforeI write more quickly. Recently, for instance, it took me only twoweeks to write an essay on the difference between birth-givers( al-w§lid§n) and caregiver-parents ( al-abaw§n), and its implications