The Arab Possible State: From al-Tahtawi to al-Jabri

Abstract

Based on al-Jabri’s study of Arab–Islamic intellectual history, this chapter argues that a modern Arab State is possible from within the Arab–Islamic tradition, despite the various obstacles encountering its realization, lately manifested in the disappointments of the so-called Arab Spring of 2010. After presenting three Arab political discourse levels that preceded al-Jabri’s time and thought since the nineteenth century, Hashas introduces three conditions that block the formation of such a state and form its threefold predicament , based on a synthetic reading of al-Jabri. This predicament is doubly internal but also external: (1) internal intellectual crisis and (2) internal political dictatorship, and (3) external “Western” hegemony. Against these three “oppressive sovereignties”, three “renewal strategies” are required: (1) an epistemological break, (2) democratization and pluralism from within and (3) regional awakening and union.