Special-documentaries
The encyclopedia "Critique of the Arab Mind" by the Arab thinker Muhammad Abed Al-Jabri is almost the most critical and welcome during the past half century, not only because it raised the level of dialogue about Islamic heritage, ideological debate and deep philosophical criticism, but because Al-Jabri's view and the boldness of his thesis, for example, are a double challenge to his supporters and opponents.
Al-Jabri presents his encyclopedia in four parts: "Formation of the Arab Mind", "The Structure of the Arab Mind", "The Arab Political Mind", and "The Arab Ethical Mind". There is no doubt that the dialogues about this encyclopedia raised the level of discourse. Intellectual about the Arab-Islamic heritage, and took him to the paths of deep philosophical thought.
This episode of the "Outside the Text" program monitors some of the wide controversy raised by the encyclopedia in the Arab world, and Arab researchers and thinkers discuss what Al-Jabri put forward in it in terms of critical and research ideas for Arab thought.
"We do not practice criticism for the sake of criticism." The advantage of bold proposition
Al-Jabri was distinguished by his bold and unique proposition at the same time, as he says in his encyclopedia: We do not practice criticism for the sake of criticism, but rather for the sake of liberation from what is dead or hardened in our mental being and our cultural heritage.
The professor of philosophy, Abu Yarub Al-Marzouqi, believes that Al-Jabri wanted to transfer Arab thought from disintegration to unity, and he likened what he did with the first brush stroke in a preliminary drawing of a portrait of Arab-Islamic culture, but those who took advantage of this painting and considered it a complete painting are the ones who spoiled it, and there is no fault for Al-Jabri in that.
On the other hand, Professor of Islamic Studies Radwan Al-Sayed believes that Al-Jabri made a tremendous effort to work on his project in terms of the material that was used in it, and the structure on which it was based, and it included the intellectual and cultural aspects.
Dr. Hisham Ghasib, President of Princess Sumaya University in Jordan, describes the way in which Al-Jabri worked on Arab and Islamic culture as similar to the police method, as he always wonders, tries, makes mistakes, and retracts his mistake. He says that this method of research had a special charm on generations of Arab readers.
Arab thinker Muhammad Abed al-Jabri, author of the encyclopedia "Critique of the Arab Mind"Going beyond the inherited... a ride to catch up with the West
Al-Jabri shows in his book that there is a big gap between the heritage belonging to the Arabian Peninsula in language and culture, and the present, and it is necessary to transcend much of the heritage and seek the help of the Western one for advancement, and he also saw in some of the heritage an enlightening part that must be built upon.
Radwan Al-Sayyed says that the motive behind writing the encyclopedia was revolutionary to liberate himself from this heritage, but Al-Jabri's style was smooth and easy for people to accept what he said, especially since he came from a left-wing partisan background.
Al-Jabri - as the former president of the Moroccan Philosophical Society, Dr. Muhammad Sabila says - said from the beginning that he is not a traditional reader of heritage, but rather a modernist reader of it. The primary considerations were critical academic analytical considerations.
Al-Jabri did not question the Islamic axioms that Muslims believe in. Rather, he discussed the types of thinking about Islam"Formation of the Arab Mind"... Holding the Stick of Heritage from the Middle
Al-Jabri says in the “Formation of the Arab Mind” section: Heritage cannot be adopted as a whole because it belongs to the past, and because the elements assessing the past do not all exist in the present, and it is not necessary that their presence in the future be the same as their presence in the present, and similarly it cannot be rejected Heritage as a whole is for the same reason, it is - like it or not - an essential component of the present, and changing the present does not mean starting from scratch.
As the researcher in Arab heritage, Hassan Najmi, says, Al-Jabri did not put the Islamic axioms that Muslims believe in into question, nor did he raise a question about the Qur’an, nor did he concern himself with those issues of faith that do not oblige him as long as people believe in them. Thinking about Islam, because he wants to understand the deep structures of the Arab mind and how it interacts with the world and religion.
Al-Jabri was preoccupied with the advancement of civilization due to his being a politician in the Moroccan Socialist Union, and as a bold and direct thinker who waged a battle in re-studying heritage through analysis and accountability, criticizing the prevailing reading of boasting and glorification of heritage.
Some critics believe that al-Jabri, by saying this, wanted to transfer Arab thought from disintegration to unity"The structure of the Arab mind".
Al-Jabri says in his book "The Structure of the Arab Mind": What we seek today in terms of modernizing the Arab mind and renewing Islamic thought depends not only on the extent to which we absorb contemporary scientific and methodological gains, the gains of the twentieth century and beyond, but also - and perhaps primarily - depends on The extent to which we are able to recover the criticism of Ibn Hazm, the rationality of Ibn Rushd, the fundamentalism of Al-Shatibi, and the historicism of Ibn Khaldun.
When Al-Jabri wrote "We and the Heritage", he had in mind a project on how the Arab mind could be liberated from the heritage, says Radwan Al-Sayed.
The researcher in Arab heritage, Hassan Najmi, considers that Al-Jabri did not intend to break with the heritage, and he did not believe in that idea, because he is a political and cultural actor, and he knows well the religious presence in people, but he wanted to reformulate it away from the shabby, closed style.
Al-Jabri believes that the modernization of the Arab mind takes place by restoring the mentality of Ibn Hazm and Ibn Rushd.In one of his famous trilogy, Al-Jabri divided patterns of knowledge into three sections; Statement, which is language and logic, and proof, which is equivalent to experimentation, and gratitude as it is with Sufism, which is what he criticized most because it contradicts the methodology of awareness.
Dr. Ghasib believes that Al-Jabri clearly condemned gratitude, while he considered the statement to be our essence as an Arab nation, but what we need is proof, which is the Western approach based on experimentation.
As for Dr. Abu Yarub Al-Marzouqi, he says that most of the cognitive theories are based on eloquence and gratitude. As for the proof, it comes at a late stage when the theory has matured and has a vision of existence that enables searching for gaps to become an effective theory. Modern science starts from hypotheses that remain pending. It is experience that proves or denies it, as science is based on deductive hypotheses, not demonstrative ones.
From a lecture by Al-Jabri at the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation in Jordan in the mid-1980s"There is nothing new under the sun"... a pre-Islamic mystical legacy
Al-Jabri says in the book “The Structure of the Arab Mind”: The gnostic interpretation of the Qur’an is an implication, not an elicitation, a revelation, or an inspiration. Including the words of the Qur’an derived from the ancient mystical legacy preceding Islam. Without claiming that we have made a comprehensive enumeration, we can decide - based on our experience by dealing with the Qur'anic text and mystical texts, Sufi, Shiite, and esoteric philosophical ones - that there is no mystical idea that Islamic mystics claim to have obtained through revelation, whether through Struggles and mathematics or by reading the Qur’an, unless we find a direct or indirect origin for it in the pre-Islamic mystical heritage. Here the proverb that says “there is nothing new under the sun” is true.
The writer and researcher in Arab thought, Ibrahim Al-Ajlouni, believes that Al-Jabri called for estrangement with other aspects that deepened in mysticism and extremist Sufism, so that they abolished logic and reason, while Dr. Muhammad Sabila believes that Al-Jabri showed his strict mentality in his opposition to Sufism, and considered the Sufi mind resigned.
An intellectual evening by Al-Jabri in Saudi Arabia in 2009"Language is not only a tool of thought"... A racist ruling with an oriental flavor
Within his comparison between the Arab mind and the Western mind, Al-Jabri described the Western mind as a demonstrative mind, i.e. experimental, realistic, dynamic, while the Arab mind is a graphic mind centered on language, and the speakers saw that Al-Jabri was harsh in this judgment.
Abu Yarub Al-Marzouqi responds to Al-Jabri's words that the truth lies in the fact that Islamic civilization is a product of revelation, and then the peoples who converted to Islam and joined the Islamic state and were not produced by the Arabs, and the Bedouins who only ruled for a limited period.
Al-Jabri says in his book “The Structure of the Arab Mind”: Language is not only a tool of thought, but rather the template in which this thought is formed, and therefore the language of dictionaries is still the language of the codification era, always transporting Arabs to an era far from their world, the world of Bedouinism that it reproduced Language rules from the pre-Islamic era.
Hisham Ghasib believes that Al-Jabri's idea is racist orientalism, and it is not permissible to consider that there are peoples with reason and others without reason, as the Arabs have contributed to building human civilization since the era of the Pharaohs and the Babylonians, and they all belong to the region.
Al-Jabri also raised the idea that the Moroccan Arab mind is more rational than the Levantine Arab mind, and Al-Jabri mobilized these evidences for his idea, but it is one of the most difficult ideas he can defend. Abu Yarub al-Marzouki replies to him that the idea of Sufism, which al-Jabri considers to be irrational and esoteric, came from the Maghreb and its greatest leader, Ibn Arabi.
Al-Jabri sparked an Arab whirlwind around his thought, which was represented in a group of books that appeared in response to him"Criticism of the Criticism of the Arab Reason".. Scales of Critics
Because of the uniqueness and boldness of what Al-Jabri put forward, his critics' directions varied in a wide spectrum, from the far right, who considered it undermining the foundations of Arab-Islamic culture, to the far left, who saw it as flattering to reactionary, but the Syrian Arab thinker George Tarabishi was one of his most critical critics, and he published a book under The title is "Criticism of the Criticism of the Arab Reason... In Response to Al-Jabri."
The writer and researcher in Arab thought, Ibrahim Al-Ajlouni, believes that Al-Jabri's spirit of Arabism did not appeal to some of his critics, and his confessions of the greatness of Arab and Islamic culture angered some of his critics.
As for the professor of philosophy, Abu Yarub Al-Marzouqi, he considered that Al-Jabri does not act as a scientific researcher, but rather as the founder of a philosophical approach to reading heritage, and such a founder is not judged in a traditional way, but is judged by the correctness of the vision.
Hassan al-Najmi says there is hasty journalistic criticism driven by personal, partisan, and international whims, but this is not the function of criticism, and criticism must be supportive of those projects and satisfied with their strengths, and if there is weakness, there is nothing wrong with criticizing.
Al-Jabri made the political factor the most important element in understanding the entire heritageThe triad of tribe, booty and creed.. Muawiya's caliphate
Al-Jabri described the Arab political mind as being based on the triad of tribe, booty and creed, and despite the admiration of many for this description, some saw it as the harshest in Al-Jabri’s rule on the Islamic historical heritage, and considered that it is not permissible in any way to describe a state that spanned 14 centuries to live on spoils. and invasion.
Al-Jabri says: Muawiya ruled in the name of the tribe and not in the name of belief, so the prince separated from the scholar in his person, and this extended to the state apparatus, so the princes became one group and the scholars another, and the rule in turn was divided into: soldiers and subjects.
Al-Marzouqi believes that Al-Jabri overturned Ibn Khaldun's theory, and made the political factor the most important element in understanding the entire heritage, while Ibn Khaldun introduced the social, economic and cultural factor, and made it important.
Al-Jabri believes that the Arab moral system settled with the Persian moral system, which is based on submission and reverence for the ruler"Everything revolves around Khosrau".
Al-Jabri believes that the Arab moral system - or what he called "the Arab moral mind" - has transcended the Arab innate component, i.e. chivalry, courage and love of freedom, and it has also transcended the Greek mental component represented in rational logic, to settle with the Persian moral system based on servility reverence for the ruler.
Al-Jabri says in the book “The Arab Ethical Mind”: Everything revolves around Khosrau, and Khosrau is present in everything.
Hassan Al-Najmi believes that the part devoted to the Arab mind in Al-Jabri's encyclopedia is not a real part of this intellectual encyclopedia. At the level of authorship, it was composed outside the psychological and spiritual cover and outside the physical strength that he enjoyed in the first three parts.
Al-Jabri calls for the practice of rationality in the Arab heritage in order to establish their own modernityExposing tyranny in the heritage.. A call for secularism
Al-Jabri called in his book to depart from the mentality of spoils, creed, and tribe, not to yield to fractional obedience, and to move towards secularism, freedom, and rationality, as Radwan al-Sayyid says.
Al-Jabri says in his book The Formation of the Arab Mind: Unless we practice rationality in our heritage, and unless we expose the origins of tyranny and its manifestations in this heritage, we will not succeed in establishing a modernity of our own, a modernity through which we engage in global contemporary modernity as actors and not as mere passives. .
Throughout the Arab world, and for more than three decades, Al-Jabri's ideas represented a great deal of criticism in the Arab mind, making his theses raw material for every talk about renaissance and heritage. You do not find a person like Al-Jabri with this ambition to submit the entire Arab-Islamic heritage to his conceptual and analytical apparatus, as it is a remarkable attempt that must be recognized for him.