Mohammed Abed Al Jabri is the creator of the notion of “resigned reasoning”, according to which Arab reason must now be reinvented. He was one of the best specialists in Ibn Rochd’s philosophy, just as he has always been obsessed with understanding and dismantling the structure of Arab reason. Thus, he published “The Critique of Arab Reason”, a founding book that is divided into four volumes: “The Formation of Arab Reason”, “The Structure of Arab Reason”, “The Arab Political Reason” and “The Arab Ethical Reason”.
Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri is one of Morocco’s greatest thinkers and philosophers whose publications have generated much criticism and controversy.
Al-Jabri was born in 1935 and died in 2010. For more than seventy years of his life, he devoted himself to research. He published thirty books focusing on the problems of contemporary thought, the most important of which is “Critique of the Arab reason”, translated into several languages.
Al-Jabri was born in Figuig, a small town on the border between Morocco and Algeria. He grew up in his grandfather’s house, in a religious environment, after his mother separated from his father. It was therefore natural for him to return to the Msid (Koranic school) to learn the Koran like his peers, especially after his mother’s marriage to a fkih, before his uncle took him to a French school. He spent two years there, despite the fact that schooling in French schools was prohibited at the time, because of its link with the language and culture of the colonizer.
Al-Jabri will then attend the Ennahdha Al Mohammedia school, which was not subject to the protectorate authorities and was supervised by activists of the national movement. He continued his studies in Rabat until he obtained his postgraduate degree and a doctorate in philosophy from the Faculty of Arts in Rabat in 1970. It is within this same faculty that he will serve as professor of philosophy and Arab-Islamic thought, after having taught at the primary level.
Having been part of the resistance movement against the occupier, he was tempted by politics for a while. He joined the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and held an important positions in its political bureau. Thus, he endured the experience of imprisonment several times before devoting himself to his work as a researcher.
Al-Jabri’s writings and ideas have been the subject of much controversy, both inside and outside Morocco. The Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahman accused him of falsification and questioned his references, while the Syrian writer George Tarabichi devoted years to answering him, including through a book entitled “Criticism of the criticism of Arab reason”. As for him, he preferred to turn a deaf ear and continue working.
Al-Jabri has enriched the national and Arab library with a series of very high-level publications, the most famous of which are “We and tradition”, “Contemporary readings of our philosophical heritage”, “Introduction to the Koran”, “Introduction to the philosophy of science”, “Critique of the need for reform”, “Democracy and human rights”, “Understanding the Koran” etc.
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