BIODATA
Abdallah Laroui, a Moroccan historian, political philosopher, and novelist, was until 2000 a professor of history at Mohammed V University in Rabat and, from 1967 to 1970, a visiting professor of North African history at UCLA. He also served as a counselor of foreign affairs from 1960 to 1963 and, in 1985, as the tutor of then-crown prince Sidi Mohammed. He is currently retired. His books include: مفهوم الايديولوجية (Concept of ideology), Beirut, Dar al-Farabi, 1980; The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive Essay, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1977; The Crisis of the Arab Intellectuals: Traditionalism or Historicism?, trans. Diarmid Cammell, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1976; لعرب والفكر التاريخي (The Arabs and historical thought), Beirut, Dar al-Haqiqa, 1973; and L’idéologie arabe contemporaine (Contemporary Arab ideology), Paris, Maspéro, 1967.
Born in 1933 in Azemmour, Morocco, Laroui studied at the Lycée Moulay Youssef in Rabat, the Sorbonne and the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris. He earned his Ph.D. in 1977 with a thesis titled "The Social and Cultural Origins of Moroccan Nationalism 1830-1912."
EXCERPT (Translated)
The historical tradition that had prevailed in medieval Islam was based on transforming political dilemmas into legal and linguistic disputes in order to avoid a resolution and quell the opposition.
According to Laroui: “Each time a complicated political dilemma emerged, it was transformed into a legal matter, then made banal through speeches, and finally passed on to philosophers after having been subjected to several rational definitions. This is the elegant way to dispose of it permanently sooner or later”….
This process confirms the suitability of Laroui’s observation to assess the current contest between the political and the religious in the Arab arena. By ignoring the religious aspect of political disputes and insisting on a separation between state and religion, governments are being dragged involuntarily into the extremist groups’ trap.
– Al-Sayyid Ould Bah, "Politics Through Religion," Al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 5, 2008
COMMENT (Original in Arabic- Link)
أن التقليد التاريخي الذي ساد في الإسلام الوسيط يقوم على تحويل المعضلات السياسية إلى إشكالات فقهية وكلامية للهروب من حسمها وللتغلب على المعارضات المناوئة.
يوضح العروي هذه الفكرة بقوله: «كلما عرضت معضلة سياسية شائكة، فإنها تحول في الحين الى مسألة فقهية، ثم في مرحلة لاحقة تفرغ في قالب كلامي، وفي مرحلة ثالثة، بعد إخضاعها لتعريفات منطقية كثيرة، تحال على الفلاسفة. بهذه الطريقة اللبقة يتم التخلص منها نهائيا بعد فترة تطول أو تقصر».
[…]
إن هذه الظاهرة تؤكد صحة ملاحظة العروي وصلاحيتها لضبط الرهان الديني ـ السياسي القائم حاليا في الساحة العربية. والمفارقة الملاحظة هنا هي أن أنظمة الحكم تنساق من دون وعي الى فخ المجموعات الأصولية في إسقاطها الأبعاد الدينية على الإشكالات السياسية في الوقت الذي تصرح فيه برفضها الصارم للخلط بين الدين والسياسة.
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