The Socio-intellectual Foundations of Malek Bennabi's Approach to Civilization

 Since the publication of Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of

Civilizations” concern about civilization has been reintroduced

into the debate on the world order. Malek Bennabi (1905–1973),

prominent Algerian thinker and great Muslim intellectual, intently

focused on unravelling the causes of Muslim decline and the success of

Western civilization and culture. The key problem he theorized lay not

in the Qur’an or Islamic faith but in Muslims themselves. The author

investigates Bennabi’s approach to civilization and the fundamental

principles drawn, using metatheorizing methodology. In doing so he

sheds further light on perhaps one of the more intriguing elements of

Bennabi’s theory, that civilization is governed by internal-external and

social-intellectual factors and that an equation can be generated for

civilization itself. This equation of Man+Soil+Time = Civilization and of

which religion, according to Bennabi, forms the all-important catalyst,

is explained and its significance in terms of the reversal of Muslim

decline evaluated. What is clearly apparent is that for Bennabi, Man is

the central force in any civilizing process and without him the other

two elements are of no value.

With regard to outcomes, Bennabi’s unerring conviction that unless

Muslims changed their spiritual condition they could not effect any

far-reaching, meaningful change in society is echoed in the Qur’anic

verse: “Verily, never will Allah change the condition of a people until

they change what is in themselves” (13:11).