Sunday's Read: Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique

Al-Jabri, Mohammed. Trans Aziz Abbissi. Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique. (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1999)
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Shifting gears away from direct responses to a specific historical event, Moroccan philosopher Mohammed al-Jabiri (1936-2010) mounts his critiques and dreams of Arab civilization through a philosophical treatise, arguing in Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique (1999) for a return to rationalism. His project is one of persuading contemporary Muslims to see a civilizational connection between their present and the Arab past, arguing that modernity is not an epistemic break but an epistemic shift. Al-Jabiri (much like Bassam Tibi), argues that Arabs must approach modernity from within their own cultural milieu instead of perceiving it as borrowing from the Europeans. Jabiri divides his book into two main sections. In part one, “A different reading of the tradition discourse,” he presents three alternative readings of tradition. First, the fundamentalist view, which (again like Tibi), Jabiri paints as a defensive, retrenched view premised on an “ideological fabrication of the past.” Second, is the “orientalist” reading, which Jabiri explains is only capable of reading one tradition through the lens of another, leading to identitarian struggles. Finally there is the Marxist reading – which, Jabiri cautions, must be eliminated from the beginning because it presumes at the outset what its conclusions will be. In the second section, Jabiri explains that all of the previous readings are moreover flawed because of their lack of objectivity and historicism. Jabiri continues through an intricate critique of the traditional application of qiyas, or analogical reasoning, gradually leading to the conclusion that Arabs must reclaim Averroist thought, including rationalism, critical reasoning, and logical, syllogistic methods, in order to reason critically. He ends his arguments with the statement that it is only through a reclamation of Averroes that Arab Muslims will be capable of understanding their own legacy and building their own “democratic and socialist Arab city,” a dream that supersedes nationalism and resides at the level of civilization.[1]

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[1] 129-130