Foreign thinker
Mohammed Abed al-Jabri
Mohammed Abed al-JabriContemporary Islamic philosophy, critique of Arab reason, political thoughtMoroccan1935–2010
“We need to reconstruct Arab reason, not merely return to the past.”
Life and Thought
Mohammed Abed al-Jabri was a Moroccan philosopher, thinker, and researcher best known for his major intellectual project on the "Critique of Arab Reason." Through his analysis of the philosophical, theological, and political heritage of Islamic civilization, he sought to explore the possibility of reconstructing contemporary Arab rationality.
Mohammed Abed al-Jabri was born in 1935 in Figuig, Morocco. He pursued his education in Morocco and France and worked in the fields of philosophy and the humanities. For many years, he taught philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat and devoted his research to Arab and Islamic intellectual heritage.
His most important intellectual project is the four-volume series Critique of Arab Reason, in which he examined epistemological structures and modes of thinking in the Arab-Islamic tradition. In this work, he distinguished among three major epistemological systems in Islamic heritage: bayān, ʿirfān, and burhān, analyzing their roles, strengths, and limitations in shaping Arab reason.
Al-Jabri also wrote works on Ibn Rushd's philosophy, Islamic political thought, and democracy in the Arab world. He emphasized demonstrative rationality, critical rereading of heritage, and the relationship between tradition and modernity, becoming one of the most influential figures in contemporary Arab philosophy.