Summary of the Book of Thinking - Episode Six
When thinking about change, one must look at the foundation first; because it is what life is based on, and through it life is practiced. If it is an intellectual belief that resonates with human nature, then there is no need for change because change occurs when things are not correct. If the foundation is not correct, then any thinking about change after that is in vain. But if the foundation is correct, then those who have the correct foundation must bring about change in those who do not have a foundation or whose foundation is wrong. After the correct foundation exists, it becomes easy to change standards, concepts, and convictions; because the foundation is the basic standard, the basic concept, and the basic conviction. Thinking about change does not exist among those who feel the need for change, but it exists as long as there is a need for change in the universe, so a person tries to bring about change in every place that needs change. Thinking about change arises from merely feeling alive, even if it is resisted by forces that reject change, and making people think comes either by force or by convincing them of the necessity of thinking about change, after which thinking about change becomes easy.
Reading does not create thinking, for many of those who read do not think, or do not reach the ideas expressed by the words. If a person understands the expression well, he will have ideas from his good understanding and not from reading. Reading does not uplift nations, for thinking comes from reality and prior information, and reading is neither reality nor prior information. The common texts are literary, political, intellectual, and legislative. As for literary texts, attention is paid to structures and words, not meanings, but it is concerned with meanings in terms of their suitability for imaging or not, the purpose of literary texts is to arouse the reader and not to give meaning, so the basic goal of them is not to convey meanings but to arouse the reader. Understanding these texts requires prior knowledge of words and structures and reading literary texts, in a way that cultivates taste, so the issue is a matter of taste, and this does not come except after practice and frequent tasting and frequent reading of texts, and its prior information is the formation of taste, and if this taste is not formed, the thought may be realized, but it excites you and does not affect you and you do not shake for it. The writer chooses the most prominent facts or what he can find in it an aspect of beauty and brings it closer to the reader.
It is the opposite of intellectual texts, which are the language of the mind, not the language of emotion, and it intends to feed the mind with ideas, and the attention in it is paid to meanings first, then words and structures, and its words are characterized by accuracy and specificity, and understanding it requires the existence of prior information about the read text, and the reality of this prior information and its meaning must be imagined, and not just understanding its meaning. For example, it is not enough in a text that speaks about politics in the Arabic language to know the Arabic language and what each word indicates, but the ideas in the text must be imagined, so political awareness, the trends of struggle, and what you may encounter from opposing trends in the struggle are known... Whether the intellectual texts affect the feelings or not, that does not affect their description as an intellectual text, as long as the care is directed to the ideas. It is true that these texts are suitable for all people, but in their depth, they are not within everyone's reach to understand, but everyone can take from them according to his ability to understand, and those who do not have prior information at its level cannot understand it, and the understanding of the intellectual text must be a correct understanding. Thus, in order to understand the intellectual text - in addition to the existence of prior information - the prior information must be at its level, and its meanings must be realized and understood correctly; because the intellectual text is understood to be taken and acted upon. Islam, with its beliefs, came gradually according to events, and this is how Muslims understood it, because they imagined a reality for it, and they turned upside down.
Thought is only understood to determine the position on it, either taking, abandoning, or fighting, and not taking it absolutely, and this is necessary so that there is no error and deviation from the basic issue, as happened in Greek philosophy, which the Muslims in Iraq studied, some of them did so to use it in responding to the Christians, and a group turned to it for pleasure and embraced it until it became their opinion, taking into account Islam, and a number of them deviated and went astray far away until they disbelieved. As for those who studied it to respond to the Christians, some of them made it a foundation and began trying to interpret the rulings of Islam in accordance with it, and these are the Mu'tazilites, and some of them tried to respond to it and correct it, and these are the Sunnis. Thus, the debate took place between these two groups, and many sects were found after that, and the Muslims were divided into dozens of sects because of this philosophy and the lack of understanding of its reality and the correct perception of its meanings, and if it were not for the Sunnis and the Community, Islam would have been lost, and the same is true for capitalist and socialist ideas and what they have caused in the minds of Muslims. Yes, the Sharia has permitted intellectual study, but it made Islam alone the basis for accepting it, and in order to know whether this thought will be accepted or not, its reality and its meaning must be understood correctly, and prior information must exist at the level of thought.
