“Critique of Historicism” contemplates the ideological contradiction in the debates of Al-Jabiri and Al-Aroui

In his latest book, researcher Khaled Tahtah returns to the intellectual debate between two prominent Moroccan thinkers, Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri and Abdullah Laroui, exploring the depth of their scientific and political careers, while noting the contradiction between their ideological and intellectual projects; they were on “opposing sides in the issue of their vision of heritage and modernity.” While Al-Jabri emphasizes in his criticism of heritage “the idea of ​​connection, not separation,” Laroui considers “heritage to be deadly in our culture,” and based on this statement he built “the idea of ​​the necessity of rupture.”

This came in the book “Critique of Historicism… Between Al-Jabiri and Al-Aroui,” recently published by Toubkal Publishing House, in which Tahtah sees that Al-Aroui “does not acknowledge the death of traditional culture despite his call for liberation from the constraints of the past, that is, from the ideas that this culture carries. Al-Aroui has limited his call for a break to the public sphere and material matters that concern transactions, economics, politics, and management, because we live in a diverse society and in a world built on the values ​​of initiative, production, and an open economy. As for what is related to worship and matters of the unseen, they are not concerned with a break in Al-Aroui’s view, and for this reason he has continued to call in his recently published writings for the interpretation of everything that is not worship, while accepting the correctness of Ibn Hazm’s literalist doctrine when it comes to applying it to matters of worship and the unseen.”

The writer continued: “Historical thought or historicism for Laroui means interpreting human facts according to the conditions of their formation, and he does not hesitate to label this doctrine in many of his writings and dialogues with the name “realism,” “utilitarianism,” “pragmatism,” or “the logic of politics” based on the concept of “interest.” Accordingly, the terms historicism, rationalism, liberalism, and utilitarianism are expressions and names that he often repeats to refer to one thing, which is the victory of the call for modernity.” However, “this call for modernity based on the ambiguous concept of historicism made many criticize his proposals, and Al-Jabiri was one of them. In fact, he was the first to enter into an intellectual debate with the historian Abdullah Laroui.”

Among the things included in the book is a reminder of the coincidence of Al-Jabiri’s criticism of Al-Aroui with the context of “preparing for the extraordinary conference of the National Union of Popular Forces as an organization struggling for democracy, justice and modernity. It was useful at that time to raise an ideological discussion on a cultural level that would attract the interest of young people. Professor Al-Aroui had published his book “The Arabs and Historical Thought” in Arabic and parts of it in French in his book “The Crisis of Intellectuals,” in which he called for an ideological project for Arab intellectuals based on absorbing Western liberal thought as it crystallized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and adopting a historicist Marxism, in order to form “an educated elite capable of modernizing it (the Arab nation) culturally, politically and economically, then after building the economic base, modern thought would be strengthened and feed itself.”

In this context, “Professor Mohamed Al-Jabri published four articles criticizing the historicism project in which he attempted to demonstrate Laroui’s disregard for the struggles that Morocco had undergone, as well as his silence about the role of colonialism and neo-colonialism in suppressing liberation movements in the Arab world and the Third World as a whole. These critical articles were published in the weekly cultural page of the newspaper “Al-Muharrir” between December 15, 1974 and January 5, 1975, under the banner: With Professor Abdallah Laroui in his ideological project.”

Tahtah continued: “Abdullah Laroui had published, up until 1975, his two books, ‘Contemporary Arab Ideology’ and ‘Arabs and Historical Thought’; the latter book was the subject of Al-Jabiri’s discussion from an intellectual perspective, and his first critical article was titled ‘A Problem That Lacks Its Most Important Elements’. As for the second article, he published it under the title ‘Historical Marxism or Non-Marxist Historicism’, followed by a third article titled ‘The Elite of the Elite… and Its Program of Action’, and he chose the title ‘Liberalism and Salafism’ for the fourth and final article.”

But “Aroui did not respond at that time to the criticisms of the late Muhammad Abed al-Jabri and his dialogue with him, so he stopped writing on the subject and commented at the end of his last article, saying: (Perhaps it seemed to some that this dialogue with Professor Aroui had gone on for too long, but the truth is otherwise, for Aroui’s writings are truly rich and truly inspiring. They are among the few writings in the Arab world that have gone beyond the stage of compilation: compiling opinions and compiling words and sentences. Professor Aroui is an Arab thinker who writes about suffering and knowledge, even if his suffering is only mental suffering, and his knowledge is more Western than Arab. There is another positive aspect that must be highlighted, which is the intellectual boldness with which Aroui writes, and that is a trait that we lack in many intellectuals who refrain – under the pressure of circumstances – from expressing their opinion and declaring what they believe is right and true, and for a person to say what he believes and be wrong is a thousand times better than to remain silent and satisfied with the disappearance of oblivion.”

Tahtah, who first published Al-Jabiri’s postgraduate diploma thesis a few years ago, stated in his latest book: “We know today, through Al-Jabiri’s postgraduate diploma thesis, that the thinker Al-Jabiri wrote in the field of history before Laroui. He discussed his postgraduate diploma thesis in 1967, entitled “History and Historians in Contemporary Morocco,” while Laroui’s thesis in the field of history was discussed in 1976 in France under the title “The Social and Cultural Origins of Moroccan Nationalism… 1830-1912.” Thus: “Al-Jabiri moved from history to philosophy, at the same time that Laroui moved from political science to history. After reviewing the first book in Al-Jabiri’s career, namely “History and Historians in Contemporary Morocco,” it becomes clear that he possessed a deep historical awareness; since his beginnings, he was open to some contemporary knowledge that embraced his philosophy, visions, and orientations at that time. Unfortunately, we lost Al-Jabiri, the historian who could have created a deeper discussion with Al-Aroui’s project. There is no doubt that Al-Jabiri’s critical sense would have taken us to much further horizons.”

Tahtah justifies this guess by “the difference in the starting points of the two men and the difference in their formative paths.” “Abdullah Laroui interacted with Western schools, and was the first to be influenced by the Annales School and published initially in French, unlike Al-Jabiri who published in Arabic and received his education at the Moroccan university. However, if we compare their paths, Laroui’s most important writings are those he published in his early days, unlike Al-Jabiri. What the owner of historicism wrote in his later stages—if we exclude the Sunnah and Reform—we will find only translations whose importance we do not disagree about, but some of them have already been translated. Laroui became famous for his early writings before his fame faded in his later stages, unlike Al-Jabiri whose philosophical project developed at a faster pace; his contributions in his later stages remained more profound than Laroui’s project, which is marred by many contradictions.”