The International Seminar on Malik Bennabi

Abstract

This conference was the first international seminar in the Muslim world to focus on the thought of Malik Bennabi (1905-1973), an Algerian thinker known to English readers for his book The Quranic Phenomenon. It was organized by the University of Malaya, the Institute of Policy Research, and several other academic institutions. The seminar's patron was Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian minister of finance, a political activist and intellectual who has a great interest in Malik Bennabi's thought. The seminar's objectives were to generate a greater interest in Bennabi's ideas among Malaysian intellectuals and to highlight his impact on contemporary Muslim society. The keynote and official address was given by Anwar Ibrahim. In his speech, he emphasized that while Muslims are faced with economic, political, and technological challenges, the most important challenge is the intellectual one, as this penetrates the deepest and has the strongest impact. Ideas which examine this challenge and investigate the static temperaments of our thinking process are urgently needed. Within this framework, 'time has vindicated Bennabi's avowal that ideas are the catalysts behind the growth of civilization," for civilization is not an accumulation, as Bennabi maintains, but rather a construction and an architecture. In his concise speech, Anwar Ibrahim presented and elaborated on some of Bennabi's insights found in his Islam in History and Sociology, translated from the French Vocation de l'lslam by Asma Rashid of Pakistan. The second printing of his book, containing a forward by Anwar Ibrahim and published by Berita, was released during the seminar along with its translation into Bahasa Malayu, the Malaysian national language. The afternoon session consisted of a special address by Abdullah Na if, the secretary general of Rabitah. Nasif, who had met Bennabi in Cairo very briefly and became acquainted with his ideas later on, stated that these ideas as just as relevant to the condition of Muslims today as they were decades ago. He then highlighted some of Bennabi's speculations by addressing questions such a : Have we identified our dilemma? Are we making use of the trends interacting within the ummah such as those of the last twenty years of the Islamic awakening (sahwah)? Are we making plans for the future? Have we become capable of conducting research and moving from individual ...