Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World

Edited by: Zaid Eyadat, Francesca M. Corrao, Mohammed Hashas

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US (June 14, 2017)

Series: Middle East Today

This is the first work in English that examines the work of the influential Moroccan philosopher al-Jabri (d. 2010) – known by his magnum opus Critique of Arab Reason in four volumes – in the Arab-Islamic world.

The book, which includes 13 chapters and a critical introduction, will be out in June 2017.

Key Features:

• Offers the first comprehensive introduction to Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed al-Jabri and his relevance to the “Arab Spring”
• Creatively engages with top critical minds in Arab-Islamic scholarship on the future of the State in the Arab-Islamic World
• Discusses today’s political challenges in the region and new intellectual trajectories

About this book:

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21^st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today’s political challenges in the region.

Editors: 

• Zaid Eyadat is Professor of Political Science at the University of Jordan.
• Francesca M. Corrao is Professor of Arab-Islamic Studies at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy.
• Mohammed Hashas is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy.

Table of contents:

1. Introduction. Critique and Change: al-Jabri in Contemporary Arab Thought

Part I: Al Jabri’s Reconstruction of Arab-Islamic Thought

2. Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and Ibn Khaldun: A Path to Modernity

3. The Critique of Arab Reason between al-Jabri and Tarabishi

4. The Arab Reader by al-Jabri: The Question of Disjunction and Rejunction

5. An Intellectual between the Maghreb and the Mashreq: al-Jabri and the Location of Thought

6. Al-Jabri and His Introduction to the Qur’ān

7. The International Becoming of an Arab Philosopher: An Analysis of the non-Reception of Mohammed Abed al-Jabri in Euro-American Scholarship

8. Al-Jabri in Indonesia: Critique of Arab Reason Travels to the Lands Below the Winds

Part II: Politics, Ethics, and the Future of the State in the Arab World 

9. State and Religion in al-Jabri’s Political Thought

10. Dare to be Wise! On the Reception of al-Jabri Post-2011

11. Reflections on Education and Culture in al-Jabri’s Thought

12. A Critique of al-Jabri’s Arab Ethical Reason

13. The Ethical Dialectic in al-Jabri’s “Critique of Arab Reason”

14. The Arab Possible State: from al-Tahtawi to al-Jabri

Reviews:

– “Al-Jabri left no one indifferent; intellectuals throughout the Arab world were passionately either for or against him. His oeuvre offers several original insights which are just beginning to be assessed with some degree of objectivity. The present volume is the first publication in English to offer such assessments in a number of articles by specialists focusing on various aspects of one of the most original and multifaceted Arab philosopher and intellectual of our time.” (Abdou Filali-Ansary, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Aga Khan University, London, UK)

– “This book celebrates a remarkable, but insufficiently recognized Muslim thinker. All those who claim that Islam lacks both reason and philosophy are refuted by al-Jabri’s work. Rooted in the great Islamic philosophical tradition, al-Jabri also is a herald of democratic renewal in our time.” (Fred R. Dallmayr, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA)

– “These informative and thoughtful articles offer a critical assessment of a most influential and controversial Arab thinker of the late 20th century. Praised by some for his historicist, archaeological analysis of Arab intellectual legacy, and appreciated by others for his work toward an immanent Arab rationality, al-Jabiri was also criticized for his essentialist and reductionist conclusions. A timely and valuable contribution to a necessary discussion of his work.” (Elizabeth S. Kassab, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar)

Source: Palgrave Macmillan