Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique

by Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri, Aziz Abbassi (Translator)

The distinguished Moroccan philosopher Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, in this summary of his own work, examines the status of Arab thought in the late twentieth century. Al-Jabri rejects what he calls the current polarization of Arab thought between an imported modernism that disregards Arab tradition and a fundamentalism that would reconstruct the present in the image of an idealized past. Both past and present intellectual currents are examined. Al-Jabri first questions the current philosophical positions of the liberals, the Marxists, and the fundamentalists. Then he turns to history, exploring Arab philosophy in the tenth and twelfth centuries, a time of political and ideological struggle. In the writings of Ibn Hazm and Averroës, he identifies the beginnings of Arab rationalism, a rationalism he traces through the innovative fourteenth–century work of Ibn Khaldun. Al-Jabri offers both Western readers and his own compatriots a radical new approach to Arab thought, one that finds in the past the roots of an open, critical rationalism which he sees as emerging in the Arab world today.

Genres: Islam, Philosophy

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

See Arabic Profile: محمد عابد الجابري

Reviews

[Ragdoll Metaphysics · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not gonna lie came into this cold and it was tough - the ideas weren't incomprehensible or anything but he's mulling over various strains and traditions in the Arab-Islamic world that are mostly alien to me. This being the case I can only react to the ideas of the various thinkers and traditions as he presents them (which could very well be caricatured or one-sided). I'm no rationalist so much of this text read as a bit too rash and dismissive of of the ideas that have come out of the Muslim world particularly those of the East. He draws a sharp distinction between the traditions folded under this rubric that deal in language having to do with revelation and tradition as opposed to those that emphasize logic and science with the latter of course taking on the role of antagonist in the struggle between the two that Al-Jabri depicts. Perhaps for those looking to excavate from Middle Eastern history modernist tendencies and flesh them out into a new mode of rational discourse this sort of attitude is warranted - I'm not competent to judge but I suppose I admire the spirit of this project and probably agree in broad strokes.

[Agung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book