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The problematic of authenticity andcontemporaneity in modern andcontemporary Arab thoughtMohammed ‘Abed al‐Jābri a & Farid Abdel‐Nour a
a Department of Political Science and Center for Islamic andArabic Studies at San Diego State University , San Diego, CA, USAPublished online: 21 Apr 2011.
To cite this article: Mohammed ‘Abed al‐Jābri & Farid Abdel‐Nour (2011) The problematic ofauthenticity and contemporaneity in modern and contemporary Arab thought, Contemporary ArabAffairs, 4:2, 174-189, DOI: 10.1080/17550912.2011.569179
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Contemporary Arab AffairsVol. 4, No. 2, April–June 2011, 174–189
ISSN 1755-0912 print/ISSN 1755-0920 online© 2011 The Centre for Arab Unity StudiesDOI: 10.1080/17550912.2011.569179http://www.informaworld.com
The problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity in modern and contemporary Arab thought
Mohammed ‘Abed al-J[amacr ] bri, Translated, abridged and annotated with an Introduction by Farid Abdel-Nour
Department of Political Science and Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USATaylor and FrancisRCAA_A_569179.sgm10.1080/17550912.2011.569179Contemporary Arab Affairs0950-3110 (print)/1473-348X (online)Article2011Taylor & Francis420000002011Dr [email protected]
Translator’s introduction1
With Mohammed ‘Abed al-J[amacr ] bri’s death on 3 May 2010, the Arabic-speaking world lostone of its most influential contemporary political and social philosophers. Of al-J[amacr ] bri’swritings, the first volume of the Critique of Arab Reason (2011) has just been releasedin English translation.2 Two other books by him have also been translated into English.3
These book-length translations offer detailed access to important parts of his oeuvre.However, by themselves they do not provide a clear explanation of what animates it. Nordoes the secondary literature in English fill that gap. That literature includes goodsummaries of his writings as well as some useful criticisms, but the reader of English isleft without the means of assessing these accounts and criticisms.4 What is missing is aclear sense of the practical purpose animating al-J[amacr ] bri’s work in general and his four-volume Critique of Arab Reason in particular. Al-J[amacr ] bri provides an account of this prac-tical purpose in a paper entitled ‘’Ishk[amacr ] liyyat al- a[amacr ] lah wa al-mu [amacr ] arah f[imacr ] al-fikr al-arab[imacr ] al- ad[imacr ] th wa al-mu [amacr ] ir: ir[amacr ] abaq[imacr ] am mushkil thaq[amacr ] f[imacr ] ?’ (The problematic ofauthenticity and contemporaneity in modern and contemporary Arab thought: classstruggle or cultural problem?).5 Below I offer an abridged translation of this paper withtwo goals in mind. The first is to make available in English al-J[amacr ] bri’s own concise andclear explanation of the practical purpose animating his life’s project. The second goalis to provide English readers who might not have a particular interest in al-J[amacr ] bri’s workwith a vivid articulation of a theme that has occupied Arab intellectuals for the better partof two centuries. Al-J[amacr ] bri captures in a very raw and deeply moving way the crisis intowhich Arab intellectuals were catapulted after their encounter with Western modernity.For the non-specialized reader this can serve as a powerful and sobering account fromthe inside of this sense of crisis.
Al-J[amacr ] bri argues that the conditions under which the modern Arab renaissance of the19th century took place have caused a diremption in Arab consciousness so that Arabintellectuals in particular came to view the heritage which anchors their identity as farremoved from contemporary challenges. Thus authenticity and contemporaneityappeared to them to be split apart. The practical purpose of al-J[amacr ] bri’s philosophy is tobridge this divide. Thus he asks Arab intellectuals to undertake a fundamental revision-ing of the Arab cultural heritage, and to reorganize their very consciousness of the pastso that they and the Arab peoples in general can come to view the heritage they alreadypossess in a manner that helps them deal with the challenges of contemporary life.Whether such a project can succeed, and whether the price it exacts is worth paying, aresome of the questions that have made al-J[amacr ] bri’s work so controversial. No matter whatreaders think of al-J[amacr ] bri’s proposed project, whether they think it is workable or at all
Corresponding Address: Email: [email protected]
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desirable, they need to acknowledge its seriousness and the enormity of the challenge itis designed to address. As they seek to assess his work as well as the criticisms to whichit has been subjected, his readers in English would do well to keep in mind the practicalpurpose animating it. The translation below serves as a guide in this regard.
It is an abridged translation. The reason for that is the intended audience. In parts ofthe paper al-J[amacr ] bri, who had socialist political roots and sympathies, dedicates a signifi-cant amount of space to arguing that the phenomenon he is analysing cannot be capturedby a class analysis. That part of his argument is shaped by the structure of intellectualdebate in the Arab World during the 1970s and 1980s. But it is not where the maininsights and contributions of the paper lie. Thus I have bracketed these parts of his argu-ment. Furthermore, to readers in English some of his explanations (such as the briefhistory of the European Renaissance that he provides) are unnecessary. And some of theerudite references and tangents can be puzzling and distracting to the non-specialist.Given the purpose and intended audience of this translation, I have abridged the text. Thetranslation here offered is about two-thirds the length of the 35-page original. Acomplete translation of the essay may have to await the translation of the entire book inwhich it appears. Until then what follows makes available in al-J[amacr ] bri’s words the mainthrust of an argument that illuminates the practical purpose of his larger philosophicalproject. In the translation I have made every effort to remain faithful to the meaning asI interpret it, exact sequence of ideas and to the style.
The problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity in modern and contemporary Arab thought6
Authenticity/contemporaneity: an imposed duality, or a choice?
The problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity is often posed in modern andcontemporary Arab thought as if it were a matter of choice between the Westernmodel and the heritage (tur[amacr ] th).7 The assumption here is that the heritage can provideauthentic alternative models for all spheres of contemporary life. Three main positionsor attitudes on this ‘choice’ present themselves. The first calls for adopting thecontemporary Western model because it is the model that imposes itself historicallyas the civilizational formula for the present and the future. The second calls for retriev-ing the Arab-Muslim model as it was before its ‘deviation’ and ‘decline’. This positionlooks towards the past for authentic Arab, Muslim answers to the challenges of theday. The third is a position that calls for taking the best from each model and recon-ciling between them with a single formula in which both authenticity and contempo-raneity are available at the same time ….8
I propose questioning the prevalent mode of asking the question. Does the matterreally have to do with a ‘choice’? Are we, the Arabs, still in a situation that allows usto ‘choose’ between what we call ‘the Western model’ and what we dream about asthe ‘authentic’ model that is to be recovered from our intellectual cultural heritage?
It is necessary to admit that we do not today have, nor have we had since ourencounter with the contemporary Western cultural model, the freedom either to adoptor to leave it. Since the beginning of European colonial expansion this model hasimposed itself on us, and since the 19th century it has imposed itself on us as a new‘global’ civilizational model for the entire world, erected on bases that were unavail-able in earlier civilizational models. These include the rational organization of theeconomy and of the state apparatus, the reliance on science and industry, and theproclamation of entirely new values such as freedom, democracy, social justice, etc.This new civilizational model imposed itself on us on its own terms: unequal trade,interference in internal affairs on the pretext of defending one minority or another, theprotection of specific interests, direct rule, economic hegemony, and cultural and
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ideological control. The result of all this is that the structure of this Western modelwas implanted in our countries, in planning, architecture, agriculture, industry, trade,administration, education – all tethered to the originating structure of European capi-talism. Thus the Arabs found themselves, as have all other colonized peoples, facedwith a colonial ‘modernizing’ project involving those sectors of society that were mostsignificant to the colonizers. After independence these same sectors were to form thebasic institutions of the modern state in our countries. For us the ‘modernizing’ projectdid not grow from within. Its foundations were implanted ready-made from theoutside, sometimes through enticement, at others by force.
However, not only did we not choose the Western model, we also did notchoose what has remained in us from our ‘heritage’. One does not choose one’sinheritance just as one does not choose one’s past. Rather one drags it along. In factone clutches on to it and seeks protection within it when one finds oneself exposedto any external threat. Is there an external threat more agitating to the self and moredangerous to one’s identity, authenticity, and particularity than the creeping advanceof one civilizational model on another? Right next to the modern structures thatwere transferred to us from the West, and implanted in specific sectors of our lives,there remained old structures inherited from our past that preserve their existencewith much resilience and solidity. The result is that our societies, and perhaps allThird World societies, have come to suffer from a deep-seated social, cultural andeconomic duality. On the one hand we have a sphere of material life that is‘contemporary’ and copied from a Western script, and on the other we have anintellectual sphere that is ‘traditional’, ‘original’ or ‘authentic’, continuing the heri-tage in its backward-looking, ossified or entrenched form. These two spheres can befound separately or in parallel, interpenetrating, competing or clashing in our every-day lives, economically, socially, politically, and at the level of our consciousnessand thinking.
Thus, the problem we face is neither one of choosing nor one of reconcilingbetween two models. Rather, what we suffer from is a duality that characterizes ourmaterial and intellectual life. The real problem in fact has to do with the duality ofour attitude towards this duality. We accept this duality in our economic, social,political and educational reality. We base our development planning on ‘developing’this dual reality. In the name of ‘modernization’ we spend on, support and expand‘contemporary’ sectors. And in the name of ‘authenticity’ we spend on, maintain andrevive ‘traditional’ sectors. At the same time, however, in our spiritual and intellec-tual life we reject this duality. As a result some of us call for adopting contemporaryvalues that are said to be inseparable parts of the Western civilizational model.Others of us call for holding onto our traditional values alone. And yet others of usattempt some form of reconciliation that would weaken the impact of this duality onour consciousness ….9
The renaissance question (al-su [amacr ] l al-nahdaw[imacr ] ) and conformity with the heritage
Everybody knows that the question of authenticity and contemporaneity in ourmodern Arab thought, when it was raised for the first time in the 19th century, was notraised as a rejection of modern Western civilization and its economic, social, politicaland cultural advancements. On the contrary, it was raised around the focal question ofrenaissance in modern Arab political thought. This latter question was proclaimed inthe following manner: why did we (we Arabs, we Muslims, we the East) fall behind
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and why did others (Christian Europe, the West) develop? Therefore, how do weawaken? How do we catch up and join this modern civilization?
In order to identify the relationship between the problematic of authenticity andcontemporaneity, and the question of modern Arab renaissance, it is necessary first toanalyse the latter question itself. The renaissance question is an ideological one in thatit calls for and legitimizes change within the scope of an ideological dream. It is aquestion that is only asked once change is under way and has become perceptiblethrough historical social conflicts. The renaissance question reflects the direction ofprogress and hastens its outcomes by preaching and proclaiming them as if they werealready realized, or are on the verge of being realized. Thus the consciousness ofawakening accompanies the first sturdy steps of change and the renaissance questionis an expression of this consciousness. It theorizes the awakening and points to thepath that it must take. It is a question–answer, the desire to provide the specific answermotivates the question ….10
Clearly there is no general law that captures all the mechanisms of renaissance andawakening in every time and place. Nonetheless, it is evident that all the renaissancemovements we know about in any detail have at their inception called for conformitywith the heritage; more precisely, they have called for a return to ‘origins’. They didnot do this, however, in order to revive the past as it was, but in order to lean on it incriticizing the present and the recent past, and to leap into the future.
Socio-historically, this ideological renaissance mechanism works in the follow-ing manner: when in any particular society the clash between the old and the newreaches a certain stage, the forces that represent the new search in the distant pastfor ‘origins’ that can be read as grounding the new that they are fighting for. Thepresent then, with all its values and methods (of work and thought), appears as if itis a deviation from the ‘origins’. It is denigrated in the name of the past and thefuture. This means that the renaissance question, which by its nature is future-oriented, takes refuge in the distant past and puts it to work in the interest of afuture-oriented project. The forces of ‘change’ close in on the forces of ‘tradition’and surround them from all sides, taking care to isolate them from the past and topull the rug from underneath them. This is the central ideological feature of therenaissance mechanism.
We see this ideological mechanism clearly at work in the first Arab renaissance:the appearance of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. Even though we do not havedetailed knowledge of the social clashes that were taking place in the society of theArabian Peninsula, especially of Mecca and its environs, the available sources, at thehead of which is the Qur [amacr ] n itself, confirm that there was before the appearance ofIslam a type of social and metaphysical unrest which manifested itself as a conflictover religious doctrine. The sides of this conflict were on the one hand the notables ofQuraish, its leaders and the wealthy, and on the other individuals, some of whosenames have been preserved for us by history, who were called ‘al- unaf[amacr ] ’ (the mono-theists).11 The latter group called for change. The former group, the power-holders,those who had wealth, rank, noble descent and all those who were within their powertogether constituted the force behind tradition. The doctrine of unification that al-unaf[amacr ] preached was an unfamiliar religious innovation, whereas the worship of idols
to which the notables of Quraish adhered was the immediately inherited tradition. Onecan say that the idea of unity that al- unaf[amacr ] were preaching was an expression of arejection of the authority of the Quraish notables. The latter group buttressed theirauthority by being custodians of the idols and by attracting the masses to them. The
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idea of unity preached by al- unaf[amacr ] , which ties all kinds of authority to a one non-personified, ubiquitous God, was in fact a rejection of all personified authority, notonly that which is ascribed to idols, but also that which was in the hands of the livingleaders of Quraish ….
Islam took the message of al- unaf[amacr ] to its furthest limit and gave content to thedoctrine of unity. As a result it entered into open conflict with the conservative forcesof tradition that had authority in the present, and whose motto was ‘enough for us arethe ways we found our fathers following …’.12 Islam, rather than turning only to thefuture and renouncing the past wholesale, offered on the contrary the motto of return-ing to ‘origins’, to the religion of Abraham, the patriarch of the Arabs.13 This,however, was not in order to return to the latter’s religion as it was historically, but inorder to tie itself to an ‘authentic’ heritage on which it could lean in realizing a historicleap ….
Under the banner of Islam the present was conquered and the future was built.The past, however, was comprehended and contained as an ‘authentic origin’. Inthis way the problem of the past was solved and the Arab past was concentratedinto one point, ‘it is the cult of your father Abraham. It is He who has named youMuslims both before and in this revelation …’.14 As to the life of the Arabs afterthe faith of Abraham and his son Isma’il, it was simply declared a ‘J[amacr ] hiliyyah’. J[amacr
] hiliyyah in Islamic terminology does not mean ignorance only. Rather, it alsomeans chaos in all spheres. One might say it is the lack of history.15 The Muslimcall to faith (da wah) and the first Arab renaissance emerged in conformity with aheritage. It leaned on this heritage in order to transcend the inherited and toproclaim a new heritage ….16
The question that now emerges, and that takes us back to our core concern, can bearticulated as follows: why has the modern Arab renaissance of the 19th and 20thcenturies not succeeded in implementing this particular mode of transcending thepast? Why is it that for us the ‘heritage’ in some form or other is always placed inopposition to ‘the challenges of the age?’17 In other words why has the problematicof authenticity and contemporaneity remained since that time until today (for one-and-a-half centuries) the central problematic of Arab thought? … Why did the first Arabrenaissance and the modern European one not suffer from ‘the problematic of authen-ticity and contemporaneity’, or from what we call ‘the heritage and the challenges ofthe age?’
The dual role of ‘the Other’
The following historical truth stands whether we ascribe it to God’s plan and wisdomor to coincidence and chance. The emergence of the first Arab renaissance that waslaunched by the appearance of Islam, and that expanded into the neighbouring coun-tries initiating a distinct Arab-Muslim civilization; and the emergence of the modernEuropean renaissance that forged its path by means of a religious ‘revival’ and reformmovement and later the scientific and industrial revolutions, both coincided with thefall of what could have constituted a competing, confining ‘other’. The Arab-Muslimrenaissance emerged after a long war had bled dry both the Persian and Greek Empiresthat used to share control over the Arab regions and the neighbouring areas that werelater to become bases and limbs of the Arab-Muslim Empire. There was in that areasomething akin to a political vacuum. Immediately after the establishment of theMuslim state in Medina, the Arabs dealt the final blow to the Persian Empire, and
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pushed the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire far away from their lands, mainly faraway from the vital centre of their young state. In this way they disposed of the twochallengers who were likely to have scuttled the first Arab renaissance. Thus the firstArab renaissance got rid of the competing, confining, obstructing ‘other’ and emergedfree in a broad vital sphere that it transformed into its own world, and then proceededto absorb other vital spheres to the west, east, north and south in order to tie them toits own world.
The situation of the modern European renaissance is similar. Its emergence in the12th and 13th centuries coincided with the serious decline and retrogression of Arab-Muslim civilization, which was the result of a cluster of internal factors. Conse-quently, as the course of retrogression was moving the Arabs backwards, the courseof renaissance was moving Europe progressively forward. Both processes came to ahead with the fall of the Andalus on the one hand and the transfer of the Arab sciencesto Europe on the other, so that the renaissance could have its second and decisive birthin the 16th and 17th centuries, free from all competition and confinement. Thus theEuropean Enlightenment began to forge its path freely within a broad vital sphere (theEuropean continent) that it rendered into its own particular world. Then it quicklybegan to attack and conquer other vital spheres to the west, east and south in order tolink them with its own ….
This historical truth complements and is consistent with what I have said in theprevious section. The mechanism of ‘returning to origins’ could not have taken theform of a return to the past for the sake of transcending it and the present, were it notfor the absence of the external threatening ‘other’. This is because the existence of anexternal threat, especially when it takes the shape of a challenge to the defeated self,to the bases of its existence, and to its personality, makes the latter seek protection inthe past, withdraw and entrench itself in defensive backward positions. It is a well-known defence mechanism with which the self (be it individual or collective) defendsitself against external dangers. This mechanism differs in nature, orientation and strat-egy from the renaissance mechanism, despite their common interest in the past. In thedefence mechanism, the self turns to the past for protection and to ascertain its person-ality. Therefore it aggrandizes and exaggerates the glories of the past as long as theexternal danger exists. In the case of the renaissance mechanism on the other hand, theself does not demand the past for its own sake but restrains it through the ‘origins’ thatit revives and with the help of which it seeks to transcend the past and present, at thelevel of consciousness, and from there to move towards the future in thought and inpractice.
I think that the difficulties of the modern Arab renaissance and all the intellectualand cultural problems that have emerged from these difficulties (headed by the prob-lematic of authenticity and contemporaneity) all go back to the conditions that trig-gered the modern Arab renaissance. These conditions rendered the renaissancemechanism into a defensive mechanism as well. Thus the project of returning to‘origins’ and ‘reviving’ the heritage, which in a renaissance mechanism is a criticalone, became intertwined and intermixed with a project of holding on to the heritageand seeking protection within it in order to buttress the present, confirm one’s exist-ence and anchor the self.
Why this dual stand towards the past and what are its consequences? … Themodern Arab renaissance was from the beginning the product of a clash with a threat-ening external power, the power of the West and its colonial expansion. It would bevery difficult, indeed historically inaccurate to explain the modern Arab awakening
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via internal factors alone, such as economic and social factors, and the clash of the‘new’ with the ‘old’. The role of these internal factors was secondary ….
This applies to all Arab countries and to all the explanations offered for the begin-ning of modern renaissance movements in them. Whether we ascribe the beginning tothe echoes of the French Revolution that occurred within the centre of the OttomanEmpire and some of its Arab Eastern provinces, or whether we ascribe the beginningto Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, Mu ammad Al[imacr ] ’s state, Jam[amacr ] l al-D[imacr ] n al-Afgh[amacr ] nand Mu ammad Abduh’s movement or similar contemporary movements, in everyone of these cases the determining external factor was the West, and its involvementwas becoming broader, deeper and more effective.
The West has occupied and continues to occupy two contradictory positions in themodern Arab renaissance project. On the one hand, the West has represented enmity,colonial aggression, hegemony and dominance, and on the other it has representedmodernity and progress with all its contemporary material and spiritual values, suchas technology, science, democracy and freedom. Thus on one side the West repre-sented, and still represents for the Arabs, the enemy from whom one must free oneselfand whose designs and domination one must resist. On the other side, the West repre-sents a seductive model to be emulated and followed.
This dual nature of the external factor, as enemy and model at the same time, hascaused the position of the Arab renaissance towards the past and the present to be adual one in which the renaissance mechanism of returning to ‘origins’ in order tomove towards the future is intertwined with the defence mechanism of seeking protec-tion in the past. This duality has led the renaissance question in Arab thought to takeon the agitated, problematic shape that we call the problematic of ‘authenticity andcontemporaneity’. In our minds this problematic points to an unsettledness and confu-sion in the relationship between the past and the future, the heritage and contemporarythought, the self and other. It is not based on continuity and discontinuity, but onpropulsion and aversion.
The problematic situation of the Arab renaissance
… This means that in the Arab countries of the 19th and 20th centuries, the conflictwas not simply between the forces of innovation and tradition. Rather, it was, andcontinues to be, a conflict against the West and for the West at the same time. On theone hand it is against the West’s enmity and expansion, and on the other it is for theWest’s liberal values and progress ….
Given the dual nature of the Western ‘other’, the forces of renewal no longerleaned on the ‘authentic’ heritage alone. Instead, the Western model presented a newand different type of ‘authenticity’ that belonged to the future rather than the past. Thisgave birth to another type of conflict on the arena of Arab renaissance, namely theconflict over ‘origins’ and ‘models’, with one side attaching itself to the ‘authenticity’of the Arab-Muslim heritage, and another proclaiming the ‘authenticity’ of Westernmodernity ….18
A dramatic feeling of the depth of the abyss between the heritage and reality
….19 The problem of authenticity and contemporaneity is specific to the educatedelite and applies to all Third World countries. In the case of the Arab countries,colonialism was unable to destroy and obliterate Arab/Islamic culture. For the
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latter was not a collection of remnants and ruins of old popular cultural edifices.Instead, it was and continues to be a ‘cognizant’ living culture in which language,literature, religion, and thought are deeply ingrained in hearts and minds, thoughtand behaviour. In addition it was, and continues to be the culture of a glorious pastwhich is always remembered with longing and pride. This past is a refuge andprotector against any external threat. This is why the culture of the past in ourconsciousness (we the Arabs) is a ‘heritage’ (tur[amacr ] th) and not simply an ‘inherit-ance’ (irth). Inheritance is what the son inherits from his father after the latter’sdeath, so it signifies the absence of the father and the taking of his place by theson. Heritage, on the other hand, is the presence of the ancestors in their progeny.Hence the specific status of the problem of authenticity and contemporaneity inmodern and contemporary Arab thought. The Arab/Islamic culture that haspresented itself in the recent past as an alternative to colonial culture and thattoday presents itself as a competitor with Western culture (the culture of the age),is not made up of the remains of old ruins or some collection of engravings,symbols, customs, dances and songs. In short it is not the remnant of the culture ofthe past, but is the totality of that culture: it is its doctrine, law, language, litera-ture, mentality, outlook, reason and their cognitive, ideological, intellectual basisand their emotional core.
Thus what is specific about the problem of authenticity and contemporaneity inmodern and contemporary Arab thought is that the Arabs possess a living culturalheritage in their souls, emotions, minds, opinions, memories and outlooks, in theirbreasts and in their books. It is a heritage that is very present in their consciousnessand in their unconscious in a way that might be unparalleled in the modern world. Thereactions elicited by colonial intrusion and aggression, of employing the heritage asan ideological weapon of resistance, have added to the weight of this heritage in Arabconsciousness and in the Arab unconscious. The continued presence of this externalthreat has favoured the use of the heritage as an ideological weapon against ‘theother’, and helped undermine and suppress all attempts being made to employ it forthe renaissance project ….
However, this ideological presence of the Arab heritage in contemporary Arabconsciousness, in other words the constant invitation to use it as an ideologicalweapon against external threats, is only one side of the coin. The other side whichweighs more heavily on Arab consciousness and the Arab unconscious today is thatdramatic feeling of the depth of the abyss separating the heritage and its cognitiveideological and normative content from the thought of the contemporary world withits scientific, technical, normative achievements and its rational and behaviouralstandards.
Now we can see that the way in which the presence of the heritage weighs onArab consciousness and its feeling of an abyss separating that heritage from thematerial and intellectual givens of the current age, explains and justifies the generalacceptance and currency of the phrase ‘the heritage and the challenges of the age’in the contemporary Arab intellectual arena. … Whatever terms one uses to trans-late this ‘authentic’ Arabic phrase to any European language will, in the eyes of thenative speakers of that language, seem vague. The phrase would not evoke in themall the intellectual and emotional anxieties that it evokes in us. Should we ask forwhy their reception of it is so ‘cold’, it is very likely that their answer wouldinclude the observation that the attempt to link the ‘heritage’ with ‘the challenges ofthe age’ is meaningless.
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Let us ask then why the connection between the heritage and the challenges of theage is meaningful in this deep dramatic way for us Arabs, and why it is meaninglessto them, I mean the Europeans.
Europe and its heritage: continuity and discontinuity
… If we look at the history of modern European thought, especially since Bacon andDescartes (the 17th century), we find that it is a chain of revisions of the ‘heritage’,where heritage is understood as the thought of the past and the thought of the presentat the same time. Ever since Bacon called for the liberation from illusions (the illu-sions of tribe, the cave, and the theatre) and for adopting experience as the point ofdeparture and standard, and ever since Descartes adopted doubt as a method (and aprogramme) and declared the need for a ‘clean slate’ in order to free oneself from allintellectual authorities and to depend on the authority of reason alone, namely theauthority of factuality and clarity, … European thought has been rereading its historyon the basis of continuity and discontinuity, vision and revision, criticism and the crit-icism of criticism. Separation from the heritage was for the sake of renewing theconnection with it, and the connection with it was for the sake of renewing the sepa-ration from it. Thus every new idea that a thinker comes up with, be it in the realm ofphilosophy, literature, art, marks a form of separation from the heritage, the thoughtof the past, its standards and values. However, no sooner does such an idea establishits ability to withstand the reactions it elicited than it becomes a new bridge to the heri-tage. It leads to the rereading of the heritage, the reorganization of its parts, and thesearch for ‘the new’ from within its depths, so that the relationship between the heri-tage and the present with all its concerns is reconfigured in such a way as to allow theone to enrich the other, clarify it, and inspire creativity. European thought has beenand continues to be renewed from within its own heritage, while at the same timeworking to renew that heritage, by reconstituting its old materials and enriching themwith new ones.
In this way, the Europeans have in the last three centuries rewritten their overallcivilizational history in a way that renders it into a history of development andprogress. They organized their history by centuries and made each century into aperiod distinguished by specific characteristics that render it into a cultural whole.One, however, that is not isolated but that forms a link in a chain in which the precur-sor explains and grounds what follows, and what follows enriches and clarifies whatcame before it. They worked to close all the gaps and to highlight the elements ofunity in their cultural history, emphasizing what resonates with their concerns andmarginalizing what does not. They used ‘scissors’ to confer logic and rationality onits fluctuations and circuitous paths, thus causing Reason to dominate history andcausing history to move Reason. Their unarticulated purpose in all this, bothconsciously and unconsciously, is to establish a continuity that would serve as a solidand clear point of reference around which currents of thought and movements can beorganized in a logical and historical manner so that it becomes easy to distinguishwhat ‘was before’ from what ‘came after’.
In this way, Europeans were able to get rid of the weight of the past, allowing it tocarry itself without burdening them or drawing them to itself. The past started tosupport them and push them forward. Whether the continuity they established in theircultural history expresses a historical reality or an illusion, what matters is the functionit serves at the level of consciousness. By organizing history in such a way Europeans
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have made it impossible for themselves to consider, even in their dreams, the returnof what was before to take the place of what came after. Thus we see them orientedtowards the future. They face the future and engage it. Indeed they seem to be racingahead without disavowing their past or using it as a model for their future. In this casethe past occupies its natural role in history, or more importantly in the consciousnessof history. The result of all this is that when a European reads his history he reads init Reason and logic, thus he gains from that reading a view of the future that is itselfbased on Reason and logic.
As to what we call ‘the challenges of the age’, to them these are not external chal-lenges. They are instead the offspring of their present and the outcome of the chain ofprogress that links their past and present in their minds. ‘The age’ does not challengethem because it is their age. They eagerly look towards future horizons and predict theproblems of the future. Thus they adapt their present (and by implication, the residuesof the past in them, i.e. their heritage) to the requirements of the inevitable future. Inother words, the heritage in their consciousness is not strongly differentiated from, nordoes it clash with, the conditions of the age and the horizons of the future. This isbecause they reorganize it in time. And time, for them, is an uninterrupted progressingline with no room for back-and-forth movements or fits and starts. Together withrationality, historicity is the basic support of modern and contemporary Europeanthought. Historicity and rationality are two inseparable intellectual dispositions.Historicity involves rendering Reason present in history. Rationality involves render-ing history present in Reason teaching it every now and then to revise its concepts,examine its bases, and re-examine the manner of its own production.
This, in general outlines, is the image of European consciousness as seen from theperspective of the relationship between the past and the present. Indeed, I have high-lighted those aspects of it that reflect stability and tranquillity and neglected theaspects that reflect agitation and unease. The appearances of unease and agitation inmodern and contemporary European consciousness have since the 16th century beentemporary, reflecting crises of development that were quickly overcome. No matterhow influential these temporary appearances have been in European thought, theynever reached the stage that would make European consciousness feel the burden ofthe abyss that in contemporary Arab consciousness separates the past from the presentand that renders talk about ‘the heritage and the challenges of the age’ justified andmeaningful ….
Rebuilding consciousness
Let us focus on the conditions that differentiate the heritage from the ‘challenges ofthe age’ in our consciousness. … In our modern Arab consciousness, the heritage andcontemporary thought are split and severed from each other. No bridge, not even athread, connects them. The extent of this diremption made it possible for one of us towrite with great excitement, though with good intentions: ‘I will put it clearly andhonestly: we will either live our age with its thoughts and problems, or we will rejectit and lock the gates in order to live our heritage … we are free to choose, but we donot have the option of reconciling these two modes of thought.’20
But is it really true that we do not have the choice of ‘reconciling’ these two modesof thought? If we were to attempt to reconcile the science and philosophy of the pastand the science and philosophy of today, then indeed we would be attempting theimpossible, for us or for anyone else. But there is no one among us who demands this
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type of reconciliation. As far as religion is concerned, it itself does not change, whatchanges is our understanding of it and our relationship to it.
On the other hand, it is a different matter when we think of unifying in our mindsthe thought of the contemporary world and our heritage. Here it is not a matter ofreplacing the present with the past, or of replacing the new with the old. Rather, it isone of rebuilding our consciousness of the past and the present and of re-conceivingthe relationship between them. This requires a project of planning both the culture ofthe past and the culture of the future. Mapping the culture of the past means rewritingits history, and thus re-anchoring it in our consciousness and reconstructing it as aheritage we contain in ourselves, instead of letting it contain us. As to planning theculture of the future, this means fulfilling the conditions that will allow us to accom-pany contemporary thought and to participate in enriching and orienting it. This is themeaning of ‘contemporaneity’.
Thus, what I am demanding is that we rewrite our history, that we revive tempo-rality and historicity at its junctures and in its roots and branches.
The Arab cultural history which is prevalent today is merely a baggage of repeti-tions and bad reproductions of the same cultural history that our forefathers wroteunder the pressures and conflicts of the times in which they lived, and within the limitsof the methods that were available to them. Thus we continue to be imprisoned by thevision, understanding and methods that oriented them. We are as a result draggedwithout noticing it, into the conflicts and problems of the past. We become preoccu-pied in the present with the problems of our past, and look to the future from theperspective of these problems.
Arab cultural history as we find it today in books, schools and universities is thehistory of ‘groups’, ‘classes’ and ‘doctrines’ … etc. It is a particularized dividedhistory of the differences of opinion. It is not a history of the construction of opinion.This approach of the ancients was completely justified at the time, so there is no sensein blaming or criticizing them. Rather, the blame, all the blame, lies with us for blindlychaining ourselves to that which was the outcome of specific conditions and for deal-ing with it as if it were absolute truth.
The prevailing Arab cultural history is the history of isolated arts and sciences. Itis a disjointed history that does not offer us a clear and complete picture of thetotality of Arab thought, its conflicts and the stages of its development. Rather, itoffers us an exhibition or a market of the cultural goods of the past as if they allinhabit the same time in which the old and the new are contemporaneous – in theway that old goods and new goods become contemporaneous for the duration of themarket or the exhibition. The result of all this is the inter-penetration of differentcultural periods in our consciousness of our cultural history, so we lose all historicalsense and the episodes of the past appear to us as contemporaneous scenes, ratherthan successive stages. Thus our present is transformed into an exhibition of theconditions of our past and we live our past in the present without distinction andwithout history.
Just as our cultural history is characterized by the inter-penetration of cultural peri-ods, it is also characterized by the inter-penetration of time and place. In ourconsciousness, our cultural history is perhaps more tied to place than to time. It is thehistory of Kufa, Basra, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Qairawan, Fez, Cordoba. … Incontemporary Arab consciousness, it is the history of ‘cultural islands’ separated fromone another in time as they are separated in space. Thus the presence of these culturalislands in contemporary Arab consciousness is a timeless presence, not based on
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contemporaneity nor on succession. As a result, our ‘historical’ consciousness is basedon chaotic piling rather than orderly succession ….
National culture and local specificities
….21 Our tendency is to view the J[amacr ] hiliyyah (the immediate pre-Islamic period) as thebeginning point of Arab national culture. To my mind this is an overly narrow begin-ning point that cuts off Arab culture from its origins, thus depriving it of its historicalvital sphere. The intellectual and literary life of pre-Islamic Arabia was but one mani-festation of a larger culture. Indeed, it was merely a muted extension of a rich, deep,and broad cultural field with roots extending as far back as the Ancient Egyptians,Sumerians, Phoenicians, Ancient Yemenites, Assyrians, and the Amazigh (inhabitantsof the Maghreb). The J[amacr ] hiliyyah period in Arabia was endowed with significance inour ‘official’ written cultural history, when some of the early interpreters of Islammade it into a linguistic reference for understanding the Qur [amacr ] n. The J[amacr ] hiliyyah periodgained the importance that it continues to have until now, during ahd al-tadw[imacr ] n (thecodification period, from the mid-8th to the end of the 9th century) when the overallfoundations of Arab culture were being laid down in the domains of religion,language, science and philosophy.
In my view, the actual beginning of modern Arab culture as a basis for the Arabpersonality and for Arab unity is the codification period and not the J[amacr ] hiliyyah period.For during the former, Arab culture underwent a complete planning, the first overallmapping and planning of a culture in the history of humanity. During this period thegrammar of the Arabic language was formalized. This meant that it was elevated tothe level of a language that can be taught scientifically and practically. This capacitywas unavailable in the J[amacr ] hiliyyah period. During the codification period, the J[amacr ] hiliyyaperiod itself was re-invented, as was its literature, its daily life and its occurrences, allthis in addition to the development of the Islamic sciences of ad[imacr ] th, interpretation,fiqh (jurisprudence), and the overall theorizing of the religious doctrine. During thissame period, the great, old, pluralistic, multifaceted inheritance of the ancient culturesof Babylon, Phoencia, Greece, Assyria, Egypt and Alexandria were all mixed into oneArab Islamic culture. This was done by means of translation, summary, explicationand critical commentary. In other words, during this period, all the peoples of theArab-Muslim world participated with their cultures, expertise, and skills in the makingof the Arab culture, that ever since has become the ultimate reference point for allcultures within the Arab World ….
… Arab authenticity, then, is not to be had by harkening back to the J[amacr ] hiliyyahperiod alone, nor is it to be had by looking at what followed it without consideringwhat preceded it. Arab authenticity, whether in the sphere of culture or any othersphere, is what Arabs made and continue to make every day, every hour. Authenticityis not a buried, hidden treasure, nor is it a raw given. Rather, it is a feature that char-acterizes all specific/particular creative activity. If some periods in our history havewitnessed more authentic creative activity than others, then the codification periodwould constitute the golden age in Arab cultural history. Let us then search for inspi-ration in that period and the overall planning for an Arab culture that took place in it,in order to initiate a new codification period in which we engage in a total reconstruc-tion of Arab culture. Now as then, this culture would have to include all local popularcultures contained within the Arab lands and to be broadly open towards foreigncultures ….
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Rationalism and the critical spirit
So far I have focused my attention on the ‘authenticity’ side, on what concerns the‘particularity’ of our culture, and have remained silent on its connection to ‘contem-poraneity’. I have not yet dealt with its relationship to the culture of the West.
The truth is that our current culture is dominated by this other and dependent onit, just as it is dominated by and dependent on our ancient culture, i.e. our Arab/Muslim heritage. I believe that we can free ourselves from this dependency on theother only by means of working to free ourselves from our dependency on our ownpast. In other words, we can only liberate ourselves from the sense of being dazzledby, and from the need to constantly borrow from, the culture of the West, if we freeourselves from the dominance of the ‘heritage’. Liberating ourselves from the heri-tage does not mean running away from it nor throwing it in the waste paper basket;just as freeing ourselves from the West does not mean closing ourselves from it.Liberation from the West in the sphere of culture and thought means engaging withit critically, i.e. entering into a critical dialogue with its culture. This requires read-ing that culture in its historicity and understanding its concepts and categoriescontextually and relatively, discovering the bases of its development and cultivatingthese bases in our own cultural soil. In particular these bases are rationality and thecritical spirit. Today we suffer from a need to constantly borrow from the Westbecause we only take results and products and resist the basic principles. We importfrom the West in order to consume and not to plant and cultivate. No doubt thesuccess of a project of planting and cultivation depends on the preparation of thesoil. Good soil cannot be imported. Thus I have said and repeat that we need torewrite our cultural history in a rational and critical manner, for by practicing ratio-nal criticism on our heritage, we gain an authentic and new rationality, one that isin good, fertile, and rich soil, and that can shoulder the principles and bases ofcontemporary science. Naturally, our rational critical engagement with our heritagedepends on what we can successfully utilize from the concepts and methods ofcontemporary science. Hence it is necessary for us to disseminate the culture ofscience and philosophy and to consecrate scientific research methods, theoreticallyand in practice within our current culture. This is necessary in order to solve theproblems of our past in our mind and in order to build our cultural future. This isthe necessary condition for initiating a new age of codification that buttresses thefuture, fulfils our future needs, and realizes our aspirations.
Summations and horizons
….22 I have considered the problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity from itscultural aspect, which can be summarized in the Arab intellectual’s sense of an abyssseparating his cultural heritage and the thought of the contemporary world, which isWestern in origin. Seeking to elucidate this position, I have compared the image thatthe European intellectual has of his heritage, in his own consciousness, with the imagethat the Arab intellectual carries in his consciousness of the cultural inheritance thathe does not yet own as a heritage for himself. I have explained how the heritage in themind of the European intellectual is connected with his present and with the project ofhis future. Thus he does not feel it as an independent entity separate from him, dispar-ate from and in contradiction with the needs of the present and the demands of thefuture. Whereas any one of us Arab intellectuals feels that the content and concerns ofthe Arab/Islamic heritage is on one planet and the contemporary age with its needs and
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the future with its demands are on another. Thus it was inevitable that this analysisshould lead to the conclusion that what is required of us now is not only to plan ourcultural future, but also to ‘plan’ our cultural past, so as to render it contemporary toitself by returning temporality and historicity to it. Furthermore, by bestowing logicon our cultural past, that is by reorganizing its different parts and by re-conceiving itsrelationship to our contemporary and future concerns, we render it contemporaryto us.
The critical rational rewriting of our cultural history is an urgent necessity, notonly because it allows us to own our heritage and to be liberated from the weight ofits presence, but also in order to do the necessary work of preparing the soil for thecultivation of the bases of development and progress in our contemporary thoughtand culture. This is a necessary condition for authenticating ‘contemporaneity’ inus, that is transforming it from a contemporaneity that is based on following, copy-ing, and transferring, to one that is based on our full participation and creativeproductivity ….
AcknowledgementsFor helpful comments and suggestions the translator is grateful to Dr Ghada Osman and to theanonymous reviewers.
Notes1. The original essay has the subtitle: ‘class struggle or cultural problem?’ In this abridged
translation I have edited out the parts of the argument that deal with whether the phenom-enon in question can be understood via class analysis. Al-J[amacr ] bri argues that it cannot. Theawkward term ‘problematic’ is a translation of ‘ishk[amacr ] liyyah (‘ishk[amacr ] liyy[amacr ] t in the plural). An‘Ishk[amacr ] liyyah, according to al-J[amacr ] bri, is a constellation of interrelated and interwoven prob-lems within a particular situation or mode of thinking. It only lends itself to a solution ifthe situation or the mode of thinking in which it arises is changed. Despite the awkward-ness of the terms in English I have translated ishk[amacr ] liyyah and ishk[amacr ] liyy[amacr ] t as ‘problematic’and ‘problematics’ respectively, and reserved ‘problem’ and ‘problems’ for ‘mushkil’ inthe singular, and ‘mash[amacr ] kil’ as well as ‘mushkil[amacr ] t’ in the plural.
2. The Centre for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut has translated and co-published this seminalwork (February 2011) with I. B. Tauris: al-Jabri, Mohammed Abed, The formation of Arabreason: text, tradition and the construction of modernity in the Arab World. ContemporaryArab Scholarship in the Social Sciences (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011).
3. Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique, trans. from the French by AzizAbbassi with an Introduction by Walid Hamarneh (Austin, TX: Center for Middle EasternStudies, University of Texas at Austin, 1999); Democracy, human rights and law in Islamicthought (New York, NY: I. B. Tauris in association with the Center for Arab Unity Studies,2009). The latter work, which appears without an editor’s or a translator’s introduction,plunges the reader into debates to which only area experts in the English-speaking worldwould normally have access. It appears as the first volume of a series entitled ‘Contempo-rary Arab Scholarship in the Social Sciences’. The English translation of the first volumeof al-J[amacr ] bri’s Critique of Arab Reason is part of the same series under the title.
4. Secondary sources in English include: Issa Boullata, Trends and issues in contemporaryArab thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 45–56; ElizabethSuzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab thought: cultural critique in comparative perspec-tive (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2010), 154–172; Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi’’s critical treatment in Contemporary Arab thought: studies in post-1967 Arabintellectual history (Sterling, VA: Pluto, 2004), 256–295; and Jaafar Aksikas’s criticaltreatment in Arab modernities: Islamism, nationalism, and liberalism in the post-colonialArab World (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2009), 61–94. For an excellent and critical
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commentary on al-J[amacr ] bri’s work (sadly only in German), see Anke von Kügelgen,Averroes und die Arabische Moderne: Ansätze zu einer Neubegründung des Rationalis-mus im Islam (New York, NY: E. J. Brill, 1994). While largely critical of al-J[amacr ] bri’s work,von Kügelgen makes a plea to readers in the Conclusion not to dismiss al-J[amacr ] bri’s overallproject (pp. 416–417).
5. This paper was presented at a conference given in Cairo in 1984 organized by the Centerfor Arab Unity Studies under the heading ‘The Heritage and the Challenges of the Age inthe Arab Homeland (Authenticity and Contemporeneity)’. It was subsequently publishedas the first chapter of a volume entitled ‘Ishk liyy t al-fikr al- arab al-mu [square]iir (Problem-atics of contemporary Arab thought) (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1994, secondprinting). This is the edition used here in translating the essay. It is noteworthy that amongthe commentators on al-J bri’s work in English, Elizabeth Kassab recognizes the signifi-cance of this paper and dedicates several pages in her book to a discussion of it; Kassab,Contemporary Arab thought, pp. 154–158.
6. Since I am not offering a complete translation of the text, I have marked the places inwhich text appears that I have not translated with ellipses (…). In the first section of theessay that is not here translated, al-J[amacr ] bri explains that although he is convinced that classstruggle is a main mover of history, he nonetheless believes that thought enjoys a rela-tive independence from it. Specifically, he points out that the problematic of authenticityand contemporaneity arises at the level of thought and can only be overcome at thatlevel.
7. Readers of Arabic will notice that tur[amacr ] th has a pathos that is missing in the English word‘heritage’. Al-J[amacr ] bri illuminates this below in the two sections entitled ‘A dramatic feelingof the depth of the abyss between the heritage and reality’ and ‘Europe and its heritage:continuities and discontinuities’.
8. In two paragraphs not here translated al-J[amacr ] bri explains that these positions are not mutuallyexclusive, and that they each contain a diversity of ideological and political currents.
9. In two paragraphs not here translated, al-J[amacr ] bri acknowledges the existence of currents ofthought for which this duality does not arise. But he considers them marginal.
10. In a short paragraph not here translated al-J[amacr ] bri points out the need to examine renaissance‘mechanisms’.
11. Literally: the ‘true believers’.12. The Holy Qur [amacr ] n, ‘s[umacr ] rat al-m[amacr ] idah’, verse 104, trans. ‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali (I. B. Tauris).13. The Qur n refers to Abraham as an f.14. The Holy Qur [amacr ] n, ‘s[umacr ] rat al- ajj’, verse 78.15. Compare this meaning with the different meaning that al-J[amacr ] bri uses for the term in the
section entitled ‘National culture and local specificities’ below.16. In two paragraphs not translated here al-J[amacr ] bri points to the same mechanism in the Euro-
pean Renaissance.17. Recall that the paper is written for a conference under this topic.18. In four paragraphs not here translated al-J[amacr ] bri points to some of the geopolitical and social
conditions that complicate this duality. These include the hope that some Arabs had inobtaining Western help to resist Ottoman domination. Then in a lengthy section also notincluded in the translation he explains why he thinks that the issue at hand is not wellcaptured by a class analysis. His overall point on this matter is well captured by the follow-ing sentences: ‘… Suffice it then to reiterate (and this is perhaps the core of what I havesaid so far in analyzing the subject at hand) that the relationship between class conflict andthe problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity in modern and contemporary Arabthought is not a causal relationship. Thus coinciding and conflicting interests do not explainthis problematic. It goes without saying that the existence of this problematic does not denythe existence of class conflict, nor its reflection in thought: ideological conflict …. If thereality of class relations does not undergird or explain this problematic, then there is onlyone other “reality” that it can be linked to namely, the intellectual, cultural reality. Let meput it clearly then: the problematic of authenticity and contemporaneity in modern andcontemporary Arab thought is a purely intellectual, cultural problematic. Its bases andjustifications are to be found in Arab cultural and intellectual contexts, its constituents andcontradictions.’
19. The first paragraph of this section is not here translated. It deals with the effect of colonial-ism on the intellectual elite in the Third World in general.
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20. Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, The renewal of Arab thought (Beirut: Dar al-Sharq, 1971), 189.This reference is from al-J bri’s text.
21. In the first four paragraphs of this section not here translated al-J[amacr ] bri explains that he doesnot presume a homogenous Arab cultural heritage, but a rich diverse one.
22. In the first five paragraphs of his section not here translated al-J bri summarizes some partsof this argument and revisits the question of the relationship between thought and socialclass.
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