I have not found an Arab critic whom I can associate or compare with Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes in French and Western culture in general, other than Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghadhami, with the accuracy of his analyses, the breadth of his knowledge, the originality of his culture, the splendor of his writings, the accuracy of his diagnoses, the abundance of his knowledge, and finally the splendor of his proposals and the importance of his books. If the French nation boasts of its scientists and philosophers, then the Arab nation has every right to boast of what Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghadhami has presented in terms of critical, intellectual and philosophical proposals. Hence came the idea to write a book that brings together the three philosopher critics to shed light on the importance of this comparison and approach between Arab and Western thought in criticism, which means, among other things, not only text criticism but also the concept of the philosophy of the text. These three critics met in a single vision based on the exclusion of the author, as their arguments theorized through this philosophy or this concept to treat the text from the angle of excluding the author. We know that the concept of excluding the author has been linked to the schools of criticism that came after postmodernism, as the three great critics focused on one concept, which is resorting to the text without its author. Hence came Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of excluding the author, which means, among other things, breaking the connection between the linguistics of words and everything that is interpreted outside of them. On the other hand, we see that Roland Barthes dedicated a famous article to the death of the author, not just his exclusion as Derrida or Al-Ghadhami did. Roland Barthes' article constituted a historical turning point in the course of modern criticism, to officially announce the death of the author. This author was sent by Abdullah Al-Ghadhami to the museum by firing the coup de grâce through the philosophy of cultural criticism, which moved global criticism from one era to another, with its bold and renewed concepts that keep pace with the spirit of the age, its rhythms and rapid developments, and respond to its aspirations. In this book, which I have begun to write, I examined the experiences of these three great critics. It was necessary to analyze their most important books, which were profound experiments in this philosophy, such as Roland Barthes' book, The Semiology Lesson, and Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghadhami's books, Sin and Atonement, and The Culture of Questions, and finally, Jacques Derrida's books on Grammatology and Writing and Difference.

The end of the modern era

With the end of structuralism, the era of modernity, both philosophically and critically, came to an end. This school—structuralism, which drew its starting point from the ideas of the Swiss linguist Saussure and the Russian Formalists, and later from the critic who rebelled against structuralism, including Roland Barthes—closed the text to any external factors, limiting its analysis to the critic's perspective solely through its words and meanings. Its ideology crystallized concurrently with the Russian Formalists' call to exclude the author's role in the work. Then came postmodern movements like deconstruction, which opened the text to interpretations reached by the deconstructionist critic and the reader. In other words, authority shifted from the text to the reader, and texts moved from closed to open. This can be considered a prophecy or an advanced reading of what followed, namely our arrival at cultural criticism and how its mechanisms operate. Dr. Al-Ghadhami is considered a true pioneer of this school and a legitimate heir to the Birmingham school. He was the first to practically and applied the concept of cultural criticism. Literature, where the three great figures met on: excluding the author, giving absolute power to the reader, and opening the text to external interpretations.

The Death of the Author according to Roland Barthes

The death of the author, a practical application of structuralist theory that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries, was advocated by the French literary critic Roland Barthes in a 1968 essay in his book "The Semiotic Lesson." Barthes's call came after the pre-modern era and in response to criticisms of structuralism and its perceived impasse. He advocated for the death of the author to open the door to the continuous renewal of the text, restoring the reader's role in shaping their interpretation. The reader becomes the space from which the quotations that constitute the text originate. The unity of the text lies not in its origin but in its target audience. Barthes was distinguished by his insightful critical vision and broad, precise culture. His call for the death of the author in literary texts was serious, not accidental or arbitrary. He sought to shift European consciousness from tradition to knowledge and inquiry. His call garnered widespread attention in literary and cultural circles. This call represented a revolution against traditional criticism, which considered a literary work to be based on three elements: the author, the text, and the text itself. The recipient, and any study of a literary work must include a study of the author’s life and the reason behind the composition of this work, which structuralism did not accept, as it called for the death of the author. The interpretation and analysis of a literary work is based on language in terms of the words and structures that the author used to express his ideas and opinions. Roland Barthes was the true godfather of this call, on which Jacques Derrida built his theory of deconstruction with the expansion and development that he brought about in it.

Author exclusion

According to Derrida's vision

This theory emerged as a fierce reaction against structuralism, which completely excluded the reader from the interpretation of a text. Deconstruction is based on penetrating the unknown by delving into the hidden depths of the text, viewing it as a critical tool or a new intellectual space, distinct in style and vision from the text itself. This leads us to rely solely on the text; any problem, interpretation, or ambiguity we encounter must be referred back to the text alone for clarification, not to the author. In this way, we are freed from the author, their explanations, excuses, and circumstances, which the text alone will explain. More precisely, we begin by observing the contradictions and dead ends within the text without external assistance

We must move away from traditional and historical reading and what it entails in terms of dividing eras, because it looks into non-linguistic influences, which leads to distancing the researcher from the linguistic differences in texts. According to this view, everything exists in difference, postponement, and the series of differences, meaning that the text creates its reality, imposes itself, and forms its field, worlds, images, and aesthetics through the written language. Thus, we dismantle its mechanisms from within through a single means, which is the written language only, not attributed to the author or the external circumstances that surrounded the text. All of this can be compensated for and dispensed with through the energy of the language included in the text. Deconstructive reading is not simply what is understood from the text, but rather things that were not mentioned in the written words of the text. This means that the text contains gaps. The text, in reality, is made up of labyrinths, and this is what absence and forgetting are built upon. Thus, deconstruction gives power to the reader and not to the author, and focuses primarily on writing by giving the reader the power of reading and deduction to be more able to decode the text and assemble it according to what he wants and what the text gives him in terms of signs and worlds whose symbols are decoded.

Abdullah Al-Ghadhami and the exclusion of the text

Al-Ghadhami is considered the legitimate heir to the Birmingham group, which introduced cultural criticism, though he did not belong to it. This group advocated for the possibility of applying cultural criticism to literary works, but their call remained merely theoretical until a distinguished critic, possessing a broad and authentic culture, deconstructed this new theory of cultural criticism and practically applied it to literary works. He accomplished what the Birmingham group, who believed in the possibility of such application, had failed to do. This critic is Dr. Abdullah al-Ghadhami. The philosophy of cultural criticism is based on reinforcing the reader's role in the reception process, returning the text to them by extracting language and rhetoric and examining them through their structures. This is expressed in his famous statement: "The time has come for us to search for the systemic flaws of the pretentious Arab personality, which are carried by the Arabs' literary canon and manifest in our social and cultural behavior in general." Literary criticism has played an important role in identifying the aesthetics of texts and in training us to appreciate beauty and accept textual beauty. However, despite this, or perhaps because of it, literary criticism has trapped itself and us in a state of... Complete cultural blindness to the systemic flaws hidden beneath the cloak of aesthetics. His discussion in his book *Cultural Criticism* of the aesthetics of texts and their study through their structures, independent of the author, is a clear indication that he believes in the philosophy of the text, the text alone, without its author. Dr. Abdullah al-Ghadhami adopted this approach of excluding the author from the beginning of his book *Sin and Atonement*, which led him to analyze modern critical theories such as structuralism, semiotics, and deconstruction. He then applied these theories in compelling practical ways to reading the text, relying on semantic codes, deconstructing and dissecting its units, and then reconstructing them. Throughout, his reliance was on the text itself, independent of its author. He analyzed, deconstructed, and dissected these texts, then restored them to their original state, in a compelling scientific style and with the insight of a scholar who has mastered his field with precision and high self-confidence. In this book, he relied on the foundations of Western critical theory and other aspects of the Arab rhetorical and critical heritage, in a precise and brilliant comparative process. He linked heritage, modernity, and postmodernity, as seen in his analysis of Hamza Shehata's poetry, by introducing new angles for approaching the text through the process of reception, and then comparing it with He studied prose texts, and then he studied the effect that reaches the reader, and then he described reaching it as a creative activity of the critical reader. In this particular reading, he met Roland Barthes in the concept of excluding the author and Jacques Derrida in giving the reader the first role in reading the text. It is to Al-Ghadhami’s credit that he created in this book a method that goes into the depth of the text, which is a new method in the theory and process of reception that differed completely from what was prevalent in rhetorical and literary studies, as this method established a reading of the text according to new horizons, whose function is to study and analyze the relationships between the elements of the text by tracing the effect. His second book, *The Culture of Questions*, comprises critical, analytical, and deconstructive essays on selected texts and poems. Each essay is followed by a question, and the final section consists of correspondence between the author and several critics, along with answers to readers' questions. Among the texts he analyzed and dissected, after excluding their author, were two poems by Mahmoud Darwish. He delved into the structure of these poems, applying his concept of dissection to them and creating explanatory tables to illustrate each sentence's linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical features, as well as its opposite. He justified this approach by stating, "I say this to connect my themes, as we touch upon what we previously indicated: that Mahmoud Darwish's poem *Passersby in Passing Words* moves towards the rhetorical function of language." He then connects it semantically to Ibn Sina's first conception, which he sees as having an effect on the soul, as he perceives it through the text: "In the soul is something that prepares it for action or reaction." This is how Al-Ghadhami engages with the text; he does not merely analyze it. Or even dissecting it, rather he deliberately links it semantically in a critical philosophical heritage vision. Thus, he completely excludes the author and his circumstances and interprets the text, according to its meanings and linguistic contexts and through its constituent structures, then links it to the heritage concept in a segmental way, as if he were using the technique of cinematic cutting, in every sentence of the poem. Thus, he excludes the author and enters the text through its linguistic contexts and what corresponds to them of contradictions. Thus, he revives the concept of deduction according to Jacques Derrida to work on deciphering the text and assembling it according to what he wants and what the text gives him of signs and worlds whose symbols and meanings are deciphered.

Conclusion

In this book, the critic transforms into someone in a state of continuous interaction with texts, where creativity blends with critical anxiety and a constant desire to improve his writing. The critic, as a creator, does not see texts as a final, complete product, but rather as an ongoing project of critique and renewal. The conviction of perfection in criticism is one of the greatest challenges facing critics, for complacency with the results of analysis and complete satisfaction with the text hinders creative growth and limits the writer's ability to develop. Here, both Al-Ghadhami and Jacques Derrida converge: whenever they arrive at a meaning, they hasten to refute it, never settling on a particular interpretation. They never stop or reach a center or path without shifting it further, moving it from one circle to another, as if perpetually preoccupied with distancing themselves from meaning, leaving things fragmented and without identity until they gradually transform into accumulations of transformations with no final boundaries. They adopt Barthes' philosophy of the death of the author as a context or analytical method that enables them to reach distant worlds and uncharted territories. Discovered by the text, as if they were in a persistent search for renewed meanings through the text’s references, as if they were in a state of creative anxiety to incite them to experiment in continuing to think about new ways and methods to reach the unknowns of the text, reveal them and illuminate them, as the three critics met in that critical analysis does not stop at a certain point, but is a continuous renewal process through the revelation and evaluation of texts.