The Law of Pushing Back
سنّة التدافع
Dr. Tarek Abou Ghazala
The book is being prepared for publication, in Arabic. These pages offer glimpses of it, not its text.
In the spring of 2011 millions of young Arabs went out into the streets, unarmed and without central leadership. Many saw chaos; some saw a conspiracy. This book sees something else: a social law coming back to life.
In this book, contention is neither absolute evil nor a strife that spares nothing, but one of the mechanisms of preservation, balance and renewal: through it truth is protected from tyranny, power is cured of arrogance, and room is made for what is better and more lasting. The book is an attempt to understand this law and ground it in revelation, the evidence of history and the reality of societies, so as to move from being driven by events to understanding them and engaging with them consciously.
﴿وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُمْ بِبَعْضٍ لَفَسَدَتِ الْأَرْضُ وَلَٰكِنَّ اللَّهَ ذُو فَضْلٍ عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ﴾سورة البقرة، الآية 251
And were it not for God repelling some people by means of others, the earth would have been corrupted; but God is full of bounty to all the worlds.
How the book is built
The book has eighteen chapters in four parts, and each chapter opens with one or more stories from history, recent and distant, that light up the analysis that follows: a few facing many, a regime cracking from within, a single image that changes the direction of public opinion.
The stories were chosen to range across fields and eras, from a story in the Quran to ancient Greece, popular revolutions and the struggle over news and images, and not to tell only of victories: there is contention that was crushed in its time, and contention that reached an outcome its makers never intended.
In the book a story is a way in, not a proof. Placing an event at the head of a chapter does not excuse examining the limits of what it shows, or weighing it against what contradicts it.
The journey: all eighteen chapters
- Part 1 · Chapters 1–4
Quranic and Historical Foundations
Grounds the meaning of contention in the Quran and the Sunnah, then follows it through history, into the self, the family and society, and finally into our own world.
- Part 2 · Chapters 5–10
The Great Arenas of Contention
Freedom, justice and renaissance; then the balance of power, the formation of the great values, and the rise and fall of civilizations.
- Part 3 · Chapters 11–13
Awareness, Knowledge and the Future
The struggle over meaning, language and worldview; then the shaping of the future; then civil society and unions as instruments of peaceful contention.
- Part 4 · Chapters 14–18
Toward Renaissance
From contention to integration; the caliphate between history and the future; the crisis of the modern state; the future of contention; and finally a return to the Quranic balance.
The two appendices
The book closes with two appendices: an analytical reading of twelve factors that recur across its chapters, and three tactical factors of victory: the strait, timing and surprise.