Imran Abdullah
In a recent book, Palestinian academic and thinker Wael Hallak asserts that Moroccan thinker Taha Abdel Rahman is a formulation of new non-Western philosophical traditions not centered around the West.He explores that his philosophical project sheds light on the modern intellectual currents in the Islamic world and casts a huge critique on Western and Islamic events.
Hallak argues in “Reforming Modernity, Ethics and the New Man in the Thought of Taha Abdel Rahman” (Columbia University Press) that the Moroccan thinker project stems from the knowledge foundations of most contemporary Muslim intellectuals from their intellectual projects, but systematically rejects the patterns of thinking that dominated The Islamic intellectual landscape since the beginning of the twentieth century, including "nationalism, Marxism, secularism, political Islam and liberalism".
Instead, Taha Abdel Rahman offers alternative ways of thinking - according to Barber - and develops a strong ethical system to reform the current modernity.
Hallak says that Abd al-Rahman's project is linked to the same issues that have captured his intellectual interest over the past two decades, including "Sharia: Theory, Practice, and Transformations," "The Impossible State," and "Orientalist Palaces."
Ethics as a central area
The barber analyzes Taha's moral system in controversy with "the central questions that plague modernity in both the West and the Islamic world." Barak's book contains critical views and an attempt to simplify Taha's thought and present it primarily to Western readers, in an attempt to answer the enormous problems of Western modernity. .
The barber described the Moroccan philosopher as a scientist who combined language science with Islamic and traditional intellectual traditions as well as smart follow-up of European and American intellectual outputs, saying that the line that runs through its entire philosophical fabric is the moral thread in all its dimensions and diverse directions.
Barak believes that the Taha Abdel Rahman intellectual project is the strongest testimony that morality is the central field of Islam, and considers that his new concept of human rational and spiritual is a kind of antidote to the disease of modernity in modern times, and produces a different human moral in essence.
The new barber's book delves into the concepts that make up Taha Abdul Rahman's cognitive system, including moral and spiritual values, such as the love of God and the fear of losing his love, and relies on his new concept of man derived from the Islamic concept of life to change human consciousness and behavior towards assets.
On the other hand, Taha Abdel Rahman warns, according to Barak's book, of "modern existential arrogance", focusing on the values of humility and gratitude, and addresses the question of sovereignty and the love of domination, stressing that man must believe in the eternal supreme principles established by the creator of the entire universe, like Physical laws like gravity - cannot be changed or avoided without devastating consequences.
Taha Abdel Rahman emphasizes the combination of morality and religion as the origin of assets in his moral philosophical project, criticizing the "modern Arabists" who allow themselves to criticize religious by non-religious, wondering, "Why should not others criticize non-religious by what is religious?" "Why don't they accept criticism of secular modernity by Islamic morality?"
In his book, "The Question of Ethics: A Contribution to the Moral Criticism of Western Modernity," Taha Abdel-Rahman contributes to what he considers as "the request of an ethic that departs from the surface at which modernity stood and delves into the depths of life and human depths. Man apparently communicates with his stomach. "
Abdul Rahman commented on the barber
In his commentary, which was published independently in a barber's book, Taha Abdel Rahman considered that he founded the claim of "separation between the reality of modernity and its applications" on three principles "combining the requirements of consideration and the requirements of work," the principle of deliberative approximation, which he explained in his book "Fiqh of Translation". He pointed to the need "to act in the movable in accordance with the requirements of the deliberative field of the recipient."
The second is the "principle of circumstantial competition," which requires taking into account the circumstances surrounding the recipient, criticizing the "state of drunkenness with modernity" that prevailed in Arab culture, "as if the new Sharia, which does not distract from it, but he added," I had to get readers out of this modernist drunkenness Distinguished between two levels in modernity distinguish them between "the good and the good of its gains."
The third principle is to "expand the scope of intellectual communication" to interact with the other, distinguishing between the spirit of modernity, ie, "the meanings of modernity" and its application, ie, "the embodied buildings of modernity." Taha Abdel-Rahman drew from the "reality" of Western modernity six concepts that define its spirit, namely independence. Creativity, reasoning, detailing, expansion, and generalization.
Taha Abdel-Rahman discussed Wael Hallak's basic objection to his idea of separation between the reality of modernity and its spirit, stressing that it is "unreasonable and costly" and considered "a relative separation", as there is no reality of modernity without a spirit as there is no meaning without building. That the spirit of modernity exists without its reality, and thus the intended separation is merely a "relative separation".
`` The moral theory of separation between the reality and spirit of modernity has broader intellectual and practical possibilities than the moral theory of cohesion between these two parties, '' said Taha Abdel Rahman.It also opens the door to finding more ethical applications for the spirit of modernity than Western immoral applications.
In his comment on Barak's book, Taha praised the author's effort in tracking the minutes of his project and his ability to translate his ideas into English, including authentic Arabic terms.
In a personal gesture, Taha Abdel Rahman warned his readers for the first time that his first personal name was Abdul Rahman, while his family name was "Taha", unlike many readers conceived of his works and books.
The book, in one of its readings, appears to be a discussion between East and West, as it includes aspects of agreement and contrast between the Moroccan thinker and philosopher, and a Palestinian-Canadian scholar of Canadian nationality, as well as an opportunity to reflect on the contrast between the Sufi and linguistic background of
The Moroccan encyclopedic thinker versus the background of the study of law and social sciences at Columbia University.