ISLAM, STATE, AND MODERNITY Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World With a foreword by ABDOU FILALI-ANSARI MET EDITED BY ZAID EYADAT, FRANCESCA M. CORRAO, AND MOHAMMED HASHAS Middle East Today Middle East Today Series editors Fawaz A. Gerges Department of International Relations London School of Economics London UK Nader Hashemi Center for Middle East Studies University of Denver Highlands Ranch CO USA The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq have dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape of the contemporary Middle East. The Arab Spring uprisings have complicated this picture. This series puts forward a critical body of first-rate scholarship that reflects the current political and social realities of the region, focusing on original research about conten- tious politics and social movements; political institutions; the role played by non-governmental organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood; and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Other themes of interest include Iran and Turkey as emerging pre-eminent powers in the region, the former an ‘Islamic Republic’ and the latter an emerg- ing democracy currently governed by a party with Islamic roots; the Gulf monarchies, their petrol economies and regional ambitions; poten- tial problems of nuclear proliferation in the region; and the challenges confronting the United States, Europe, and the United Nations in the greater Middle East. The focus of the series is on general topics such as social turmoil, war and revolution, international relations, occupation, radicalism, democracy, human rights, and Islam as a political force in the context of the modern Middle East. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14803 Zaid Eyadat · Francesca M. Corrao Mohammed Hashas Editors Islam, State, and Modernity Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World Foreword by Abdou Filali-Ansary Editors Zaid Eyadat Mohammed Hashas University of Jordan LUISS Guido Carli Amman, Jordan University of Rome Rome, Italy Francesca M. Corrao LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome Rome, Italy Middle East Today ISBN 978-1-349-95155-0 ISBN 978-1-137-59760-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59760-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936341 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Goldnetz/Alamy Stock Photo Cover design: Fatima Jamadar Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A. The essential interrelationship between thought as an instrument and thought as content is an indisputable fact. If we take into account another indisputable fact as well, which is that thought whether as an instrument of thinking or ideas as the conceptual product itself, is always a consequence of contact with the environment with which it interacts, especially the social and cultural environment, and it is simple enough for us to recognize the importance of this environment in the formation of thought, both as instrument and as content, and thus, the importance of the particular specificity of social and cultural environment in forming the specificity of thought. Consequently, Arab thought, for instance, is Arab, not only because of its being conceptions and views and theories that reflect the Arab reality, or which expresses it in one form or another, but because it is also a result of the method or way of thinking in which a number of givens contributed to its formation, including the Arab reality itself and all the particular phenomena relating to it. Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, The Formation of Arab Reason (1982; Center for Arab Unity Studies and I.B. Tauris, 2011). To Arab philosophers and scholars who think, speak and write in difficult times To dedicated scholars who care about the well-being of this world F oreword The Voice oF New AspirATioNs ANd GrANd NArrATiVes According to Eugene Rogan, author of a recent history of the Arabs, the recovery of sovereignty has been a major concern for the Arabs since an Egyptian army lost a battle against Ottoman troops near Aleppo on 24 August 1516. This defeat, by “paving the way for the conquest of the Arab lands by Ottoman Turks”,1 opened the way to a series of invad- ers and colonizers who have dominated the Arab world for centuries. The Ottomans were followed by various European powers, and it was only around the middle of twentieth century that new, independent Arab states emerged from what seemed a period of long hibernation. The Moroccan philosopher Mohammed Abed al-Jabri (1935–2010) belonged to the historical moment when national sovereignty was thought to be back in hand and where full emancipation from exter- nal domination seemed possible. Among the most urgent tasks that needed to be addressed, the one which prevailed in the mind of al-Jabri was about the Arab cultural heritage and its possible role in contempo- rary societies. This brilliant and rich heritage, which enabled Arabs to experience their common identity, needed extensive rethinking, a radi- cal reappraisal of every aspect of life relevant to the shaping of the new, future-bound collective identity. One of the early challenges was that the heritage of high culture that could be adopted for the definition of national identity could not ix x FOREWORD be confined to any one of the newly created nation states. Most politi- cal activists and intellectuals believed that these states were artificial units and that the only real entity was the pan-Arab nation, “from the Ocean to the Gulf”, that could claim classical Arabic as their language for for- mal, cultured communication. Their main task was to overcome division and bring about political and cultural unity at the earliest. Al-Jabri sub- scribed entirely and wholeheartedly to this vision. He saw his political activism within left-wing circles of the Moroccan nationalist movement as part of the Arab struggle for their unity and the regaining of full sov- ereignty. In fact, both as a militant of the nationalist movement and as an academic, al-Jabri felt himself to be ready for the enormous task of rethinking the Arab cultural heritage and its role in the present age. He began by a rediscovery of two prominent intellectual figures from the past: Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Rushd. Later, his work led him to engage in one of his most ambitious intellectual projects, i.e. to entirely rewrite the intellectual history of the Arabs. The idea was not to offer another historical narrative or compilation about thinkers and writers of the past, but to go much further, to submit or to engage with the heritage in criti- cal ways, adopting the tools and questions that have come to the fore in our time. His reading of the heritage was intended to go beyond the dis- play of rich diversity and eye-catching expressions. He wanted to reach out to the assumptions, rules and aims—implicit and explicit—that had motivated various intellectual ventures of the past. The outcome of this project was a series of four books under the overall title of naqd al-‘aql al-‘arabī (Critique of Arab Reason), the first volume about the forma- tion or genesis of Arab reason, the second about structures, the third about its politics and a decade later he added a fourth on ethics. It is in this series of books that he suggested the first of his famous triads: bayān (rhetoric), ‘irfān (intuitive knowledge) and burhān (demonstration) as being three different ideals that defined partially overlapping but inde- pendent circles of thinkers and literati in the Arab past. His “discovery” of Ibn Rushd (Averroès) had been a momentous turn in his thought. Bringing such a medieval figure from learned and special- ized circles into the light of public discussion enabled al-Jabri to achieve one of his most desired goals, that of engaging the public in debates about issues of rationality, tradition, religion and politics through critical evaluation of the phases of classical history and open adhesion to, even enthusiastic apology for, those who advocated demonstrative reason. He could appeal to public opinion as his language was accessible to all those FOREWORD xi who could read a newspaper; it was almost devoid of technicalities and carried messages that struck a chord in a wide spectrum of audiences. Later, in his al-‘aql al-ssiyyāsī al-‘arabī (Arab Political Reason), he proposed another set of three key concepts: qabīla (tribe), ghanīma (booty) and ‘aqīda (creed) that helped make sense of political think- ing and behaviour of Arabic-speaking peoples in the past. The first was a short term for the group spirit or sense of collective identity, which was mainly tribal in character and capable of driving actors on the politi- cal scene; the second points to an economy where plundering and loot- ing came to be seen as legitimate rewards for collective political action; and the last refers to religious beliefs and their influence in motivating political behaviour. The focus on the intricate action of the three forces of Arab history took the narratives proposed by al-Jabri radically away from apologetic discourses with their emphasis on “pure intentionality” and strictly religious motivations to the exclusion of social and economic forces. Al-Jabri also turned his attention in the later part of his career to the most sacred part of the Arab-Islamic heritage, the Qur’ān, offer- ing another grand narrative where he attempted to bring a historical per- spective to the study of the scriptures, but managing at the same time to show respect for the sacred as conceived by most Muslim audiences. What will be remembered about al-Jabri above all is his outspoken attitude, his “daring” to challenge more than one view held as self-evi- dent. One of them is the distinction between scholarly, erudite discourse and essays aimed at wider audiences. He wrote on subjects usually con- sidered as the preserve of specialists in ways that belong to the op-ed style of journalism. In this way, he brought topics from the academic arena to the public sphere. This was bitterly criticized by many of his colleagues, who saw in his popular writings a retreat from academic rig- our. The other is the assumption, widely held in Arab educated circles, that the cultural florescence of the medieval Muslim West (the Maghreb and Al-Andalus) was an echo of what had taken place in the Muslim East, a late re-enactment or imitation of the high culture of the East. Contrary to this view, he clearly stated that it was in the Muslim West that the ideal of rational demonstration (burhān) emerged, which was later adopted in European learned institutions and led to the birth of modern science and philosophy. At the same time, the Muslim East was “bewitched” by the ideal of mystical knowledge (‘irfān) and turned its back on reason and rationality. This raised a storm of protest and refuta- tions from intellectuals in the East, and intensified controversies which