Book Review Islam in History By Malek Bennabi (translated from French and annotated by Asma Rashid). Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute Press, 1988, 110 pp. Malek Bennabi (1903-73) was an Algerian scholar who received his education in Algiers and Paris. An engineer by training, his concern about the ummah 's decadence led him to analyze the causes of this decay and to provide solutions. The result of his analysis is this book. Originally written in French in 1943 W1der the title Vocation de /'Islam, it was not published until I 954, in order to coincide with the Algerian revolution. At the outset, he defines history by saying that history is a sociology, that is, the study of the conditions of de velopment of a social group, defined not as much by its ethical or political factors as by the complex of ethical, aesthetical, and teclmical affinities corresponding to the air or space of this civili zation. On the other hand this social group is not isolated, and its evolution is conditioned by certain connections with the human ensemble. From this point of view, history is a metaphysics, since its perspective, extending beyond the domain of historical cau sality, embraces the phenomena in their finality. (p. 6) Using this framework, he develops a cyclical concept of civilization and attributes its origin to Ibn Khaldiin. He argues that the phenomenon of "civilization" and "decadence" should not be studied in isolation. This is especially true in the case of the Muslim world, which is in need of clear ideas for its renaissance and should not be isolating the two. Using a sociological base, he focuses on the behavior of the indi vidual in Muslim society. He believes that the decadence of the Muslim ummah is the result of combination of historical and psychological fac tors. The first turning point came when the democratic caliphate became a dynasty. The second, which was psychological, was the fall of the al Muwahhid dynasty in Spain to the forces of Christendom in the thir teenth century CE. lltls process gave birth to what Bennabi termed the " post-al Muwabhid man" who is the typical representative of the contem porary ummah's behavior, temperament, characteristics, and psychology. While discussing the efforts to improve this situation, he focuses on the ummah's various refonnist and modernist movements. In his view, the reformist movements did not try to .give the post-al Muwabhid Mus- 252 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 10:2 lim the faith which he/she already had, but rather sought to restore its ef- ficacy to the Muslim individual. The modernist approach, which replaced the rnudrusuh with the school, was eagerly borrowing from Europe, and it is this angers Bennabi, who cannot &st saying: "This disposition for accumulating indiscriminate borrowings denounces the rudimentary aspect of the Modernist movement. Civilization is not an accumulation but a construction, an architecture" (p.33). In his struggle to come to grips with Muslim inaction and impotence, he says that the post-a1 Muw&d Muslim is the victim of a deadly syl- logism: "We are Muslim, therefore we are perfect" (p. 44). This attitude, in his view, is a battier to attaining petfection Eknnabi argues that such a view of the self implies the absence of a direct link between thought and action and engenders blind and incoherent action and results (p. 45). His analysis of the m a h ' s decadence includes the role of external forces as well, as they have played a very dominant role through coloni- zation. Bennabi's sharp eye clearly sees the post-al Muwabbid Muslim individual's degeneration under colonization through colonisibilittf, which he defines as, "the typical visage of the colonial eta, the clown whom the colonizer makes perform the role of indigine and who could accept all the roles, even that of the 'emperor,' if the situation so demands." (p. 14). But at the same time he discusses the chaos of the western world. Addressing the question of the ummah's reconstruction in the chapter "New Paths," he focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, where the movement had potential and opportunity, "where thought and action must sutpass the tradition of a closed science, and where Islam is called upon to renovate and activate itself and to learn again to live" (p. 101). Bennabi, though born in Algeria, is a twentieth century philosopher- visionary for the entire ummah. During his life, he remained mostly un- known because he preferted to write in French. Now as his w o r k reach the Muslim masses through translations, his thoughts and ideals are being recognized and appreciated by the Muslim intelligentsia for what they are. His thought, analysis, philosophy, and vision remind us very much of the poet-philosopher Iqbal. It is no coincidence that in their search for the key to the ummah's renaissance, both men assign a pivotal role to the individual. Bennabi focuses on the post-a1 Muwabbid individual and at- tempts to improve hisher potential, while Iqbal searches for the strengths of a "mu'min" individual to energize the post-al M u w U d Muslim. The rise of the Muslim individual from a post-al Muwabhid status to the level of a dynamic personality capable of bringing about the long- awaited renaissance of the ummah calls for a process of transformation. Both Iqbal and Bennabi suggest that such a process would be generated when the individual Muslim's personality is equipped with modem knowledge and is guided by revealed truth. Book Reviews 253 lltls common recommendation of these two prominent Muslim philo sophers is the key lo our success in the next century. Today the efforts of the Islamization of knowledge are actually an attempt to generate the same process that will transform the post-al Muwabbid Muslim into the catalyst of change needed for the renaissance of the ummah. Kokab Arif Assistant Librarian International Islamic University Selangor, Malaysia