Mohammed Abed al-Jabri

Mohammed Abed al-Jabri (Arabic: محمد عابد الجابري, romanized: Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābirī; 27 December 1935 – 3 May 2010) was one of the best known Moroccan and Arab philosophers; he taught philosophy, Arab philosophy, and Islamic thought in Mohammed V University in Rabat from the late 1960s until his retirement. He is considered one of the major philosophers and intellectual figures in the modern and contemporary Arab world.^[1] He is known for his academic project "Critique of Arab Reason", published in four volumes between the 1980s and 2000s. He published several influential books on the Arab philosophical tradition.^[2]

Mohammad Abed al-Jabri
Born	December 27, 1935 Figuig, Morocco
Died	May 3, 2010 Casablanca, Morocco
Nationality	Moroccan
Awards	Ibn Rushd Prize
Education
Alma mater	University of Mohammad V
Philosophical work
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Arab world
Main interests	Arab reason, Ibn Khaldun
Notable works	The critique of the Arab Mind

Biography

Mohammed Abed al-Jabri was born on 27 December 1935 in Figuig to a middle-class family of Berber origin.^[3][4][5] During his childhood, he read classics of Arabic literature, memorized parts of the Quran and learnt Arabic grammar.^[6]

He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Mohammed V in 1967. He also obtained a PhD in philosophy from the same university in 1970.^[5][7] His master's thesis was on the philosophy of history in Ibn Khaldun and his doctoral dissertation was also on Ibn Khaldun.^[3] He died in Casablanca on 3 May 2010.^[8]

Views

Jabri was "fervent advocate" for Arabization. In his eyes, both Berber languages and colloquial Arabic were inadequate as serving as a national unifier. Jabri went as far as advocating for the complete destruction of Berber languages and he advocated for their banning from schools, radio and television:^[4]

The complete purging of French as a language of civilization, culture, and communication, and the extermination of Amazigh and Arabic dialects should be the ultimate goal of the Arabization process, and this goal will not be attained unless actions are put in place to generalize and to focus education in far-flung rural and mountainous regions, and classical Arabic must be the only language to be employed in schools, in television and radio programming, and a comprehensive prohibition must be enforced on the use of any other language or dialect in these domains.^[9]

Awards

• The Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought for the year 2008 in Berlin.

Bibliography

Arabic

• Al-Jabri, Muhammad Abed (1995). Mas'alat al-Huwiyya: al-ʿUrūba wa-al-Islām wa-al-Gharb (مسألة الهوية: العروبة والإسلام والغرب) [The Issue of Identity: Arabism, Islam and the West]. Center for Arab Unity Studies.
• Al-Jabri, Muhammad Abed (1998). Ibn Rushd: Sīra wa-Fikr (ابن رشد: سيرة وفكر) [Ibn Rushd: life and thought]. Center for Arab Unity Studies.

Translations

English

• al-Jabri, Muhammad Abed (January 1999). Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique. Translated by Abbassi, Aziz. Center for Middle Eastern Studies; University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70480-1.
• al-Jabri, Muhammad Abed (2008). Democracy, Human Rights and Law in Islamic Thought. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1845117498.
• al-Jabri, Muhammad Abed (2010). The Formation of Arab Reason: Text, Tradition and the Construction of Modernity in the Arab World. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1848850613.

French

• La Pensée de Ibn Khaldoun: la Assabiya et l'État. Grandes lignes d'une théorie Khaldounienne de l'histoire musulmane. Paris: Édima, 1971.
• Pour une Vision Progressiste de nos Difficultés Intellectuelles et Éducatives. Paris: Édima, 1977.
• Nous et Notre Passé (Al-Marqaz al-taqafi al-arabi). Lecture contemporaine de notre patrimoine philosophique, 1980.
• Critique de la Raison Arabe - 3 volumes, Beyrouth, 1982.

German

• Kritik der arabischen Vernunft, Naqd al-'aql al-'arabi, Die Einführung, Perlen Verlag, Berlin 2009 ISBN 978-3-9809000-8-9