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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
It is difficult to make valid statements on a subject over which the most distressing commonplaces are poured out daily and which escapes, in large measure, the competence of any one man.* Since the area for all fruitful reflection is encumbered by knotty and prejudicial diagrams, the first task must be to clear an empty space in which to inscribe some concepts and some measures appropriate to the historical and sociological situation of the Islamic countries. However, the situation itself is very little understood because of the very backward state of modern Islamological studies. Under these conditions, it will be understood that theoretical and practical thought cannot avoid encountering obstacles in the question of Islam's development. True scientific research consists in posing real problems well, not so much in defining more or less durable solutions. That does not mean that theory must develop in parallel with practice: the decisions of political man have such a greater import because they are inscribed in a problematic at once large and rigorous. We shall try to surmount the obstacles that hinder reflection and distort the results of the best-intentioned action, by (1) discarding the false problems and (2) posing the essential question.
1 An interesting example of this type of research has just been produced by O. Carré: Le contenu socio-économique des manuels d'enseignement religieux musulmans dans l'Egypte actuelle, in Revue des Etudes Islamiques, 1970/1. See also the very suggestive work of Sayyid ‘Uways: Zâhirait irsâl al-rasâ'il ilâ darîh al-imâm al-shâfi ‘î, Cairo, 1965. This is the kind of inquiry which must be cultivated in order to diagnose in time the evils menacing Islam in its test of development.
2 Ed. Maspéro, 1967.
3 The same themes with some correctives are found among non-Arabic-speaking Moslems. For the sake of convenience and reasons of competence, this analysis is limited to the Arabic countries.
4 The frequency of this word in conversations, lectures, articles, and essays is very indicative of a desire for the "recovery of self." See for example the Tunisian review, Al-Fikr; the two recent Algerian reviews Al-Asâla and Al taqâfa; or, with a different point of view, A. Mazouni: Culture et enseignement en Algérie et au Maghreb, ed. Maspéro, 1969.
5 For the ancient period, cf. E. Sivan: L'Islam et la croisade. Idéologie et propagande dans les réactions musulmanes aux croisades, Paris, 1968. For the modern period, cf. J. Berque: Les Arabes d'hier à demain, 2nd ed., Seuil, 1969 and all of his work concerned with the future of contemporary Islam.
6 A formula coined by J. Kristéva.
7 That does not mean that every tradition is necessarily a place of confine ment : one must distinguish the tradition which perpetuates the witness to the spirit's great conquests of itself and of the world, as well as the vestiges of its retrained insolence; the traditions which furnish the designs of expansion for some social groups or for nations in competition with other groups or nations. See infra the remarks on the Koranic fact and the Islamic fact.
8 R. Bastide has lately drawn attention to the ill-fated persistence of this model in Anthropologie appliquée, Payot, 1971.
9 Deliverance from this opposition which implies an arbitrary value judgement about the scientific validity of the two lines of procedure is becoming urgent. What matters for Arabs and Westerners is that the opposition from now on must be made between the classical structure dominated by the Platonic-Aristotelian model (even as revised by Descartes and Kant) and the modern structure which incorporates the philosophie du soupçon (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud), the "dimensions of historical consciousness," and the semiological and semiotic science presently being worked out. Certainly, one must add here the philosophical implications of the exact science (biology, astrophysics, mathematics).
10 See the note above and my study, "Logocentrisme et vérité religieuse dans la pensée islamique" (to appear in Studia Islamica, XXXV).
11 That would necessitate finding a language which would take into account the functional necessity of ideology in the phases of the struggle against exterior and interior repressions while completely denonuncing its misdeeds.
12 An examination of the important work on evolution by Christendom, especially since Vatican II, would be necessary here
13 Cf. M. Arkoun, Comment lire le Coran, in Le Coran, tr. Kasimirski, Garnier-Flammarion, 1970.
14 Cf. S/Z, ed. Seuil, 1970. It is interesting to note here that all the author's critical and analytical ingeniousness in defining a plural reading of a novel by Balzac is not indispensable in the case of the Koran. For example, his arbitrary division of the text into lexies, to effect a " broken text" and thus open up several "entrances" within it, has been done for the Koran from the time when it was collected in an official "vulgate." Commentators have emphasized the lacunae in the text before, while still taking into account presumed instrusions, as well. In due time, this point will be taken up again in our work-in-progress, Pour une relecture du Coran.
15 On the definition of this idea, cf. A. Martinet. Eléments de linguistique générale, A. Colin, 1969, and La double articulation linguistique, in Travaux du cercle linguistique de Copenhague, 5 (1949).
16 From this perspective, Tabari's commentary (m. 310/923) comes closest to a plural reading.
17 This is the true sense of the verb 'ql in the Koran, incorrectly translated by "reflect" or "reason about" in conformity with its late entrance and dissemination throughout philosophical literature.
18 We want to underline the functional character of all the doctrinal elaborations indicated by Islamologists: cf. H. Laoust, Les schismes dans l'Islam, Payot, 1965, and M. Arkoun, Contribution à l'étude de l'humanisme arabe au IV e-V e siècle, ed. Vrin, 1970.
19 This important distinction owes to R. Bultmann. The existential order refers to the kind of universal structures of existence which are postulated by revealed texts and great philosophies—thus, the kind that exhaustive analysis can open up (as N. Chomsky does with syntactical structures) for concrete existence as inspired by these texts or philosophies. That is to say, how fruitful is the existential idea for the exegete, in particular.
20 We would need to recall here all the "dynasties" which have ruled Islamic territory at one time or another: cf. H. Laoust, op cit.; and C. Cahen, L'Islam des origines à l'empire ottoman, Bordas, 1970.
21 National orthodoxy is evident, for example, in the obligation felt by young Tunisian researchers to choose a "Tunisian" thesis subject. This attitude is justifiable so long as there are, in fact, large areas as yet unexplored; but, eventually, there are dangers, from a strictly scientific point of view.
22 Some appeals in this direction have been sent out, nevertheless, by such prestigious personages as Taha Husayn. The Arab League founded a bureau of Arabization at Rabat which does commendable work; but it apparently has no connection with the academies of Cairo, Damascus, or Baghdad, themselves isolated from each other! For the priorities of effort to be undertaken in this area, cf. our remarks to the colloquy of Mohammadia (Morocco), in the Actes du colloque in Etudes philosophiques et littéraires, Rabat, 1971.
23 The title of an anthology recently published by A. Abdel Malek, ed. Seuil, 1970.
24 Certainly, artistic creation (cinema, television, theater, etc…) should be added here which ought to enrich the information programs in the highest sense.
