This article posits Arab and Muslim disunity as a function or corollary of a breakdown of imaginative creativity in the Muslim world, precipitated by a series of reactions to external factors which have derailed Islam from its natural role and proactive function as a process of perpetual reformation. The inherent pathology is that the terms of the debates have always been determined by exogenous factors. The potential, authentic avenues for social progress which are native to Islam, and the Islamic heritage which is entirely capable of providing an alternative to Western modernity, have been restricted or negated by this reactive stance, which has developed into a rigid, sterile and debilitating dogmatism. The article argues that the real root of the problem lies in the adoption by Muslims of alien methods and institutions, rather than in the considerable difficulties caused by foreign intervention, and suggests that the solution lies in the will to re-explore the analyses of some of Islam's great original thinkers.

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