In my opinion, it is possible to follow a series of questions and issues that Malek Bennabi disseminated in his books, to which he gave a general title : “Civilization issues”. In fact, finding the right question, in the right circumstances, and asking it in the correct way, then tackling it with the right methodology constitutes the heart of well-guided thinking and the fruit of a correctly-led thought process. Otherwise, the answer and its development may differ according to circumstances, and may be subject to discussion and refutation. But a question that reaches its maturity will constitute the axis of a collective thinking process and the fuel to collective consciousness.

This is why questioning the crisis is the core of civilizational models, and this is the reason why the Rushd model proposes, without hesitation, to agree first to question the crisis clearly, through interrogating the movements of thought and action: what?; how?; who?; and when ?

Maybe the starting question and the problematic constituting the first step towards the right direction took Malek Bennabi many decades. He was observing that the contemporary Arab Nahda failed in asking this question, and therefore failed in answering it, even if it managed to revive the Muslim conscience and awaken it from its hibernation. But it didn’t trace a path for it, nor did it design a methodology or determine any objective for it. Hence should we question incessantly: from where the construction of a civilization starts? Bennabi comments on this by saying: “this question is imposed by logics. If I’m thinking of building a construction, I should know from where I will have to start.”

In another context, Bennabi says : “the human being is, no doubt, between two forces : negative forces that want to push him backwards, exploiting man’s disposition to stability; and positive forces that push him forwards into realizing his future. Our positive forces should not weaken in us in a way to hinder our arrival to civilization. But what are the ways that permit us to enter civilization or to come back to it?”

I consider that this starting question did not yet find the practical and active answer. It is still pending and still waiting for initiatives. It did not leave the universities’ seats, the mosques’ minbars and some sections in specialized books. It didn’t turn into a question that takes a “cultural” trait and transcends the mere information and memorization into becoming a behavior, a skill and a movement in all life’s aspects: political, educative, economic and so forth.

However, Bennabi doesn’t neglect to warn us that : “the first gate to civilization is to face problems optimistically and not pessimistically”, this means that “we should get rid of the psychosis of the impossible, and the psychosis of the easy way,as nothing is easy and nothing is impossible.” Then, the second step, according to Bennabi, is what he calls “the gate of duty”, i.e. “to focus first on doing the duties and not to obtain rights.”

And yet, these two remarks represent a transitional traffic signal showing what is more profound, since Bennabi didn’t pretend that he found the true answer or brought the final say.

Then, the human being, who is the first constituent of the civilization equation, is put in the heart of the movement for change and civilization building. But his relation to the movement of history and the image of history has a direct influence on his dynamism or stagnation. On this concern Bennabi reminds us by saying: “When I see in the movement of history man’s movement, and in the stagnation of history his stagnation, this lets me face a problem that should be categorized under the title of “efficiency”: man’s efficiency in history. What are the conditions of such efficiency?”

Did we efficiently answer the “efficiency” question? Or does “efficiency” still remain a rhetorical course, or at best, an intellectual or philosophical article that has no relation to the realities of life or to the lively realities that determine our needs, as an Umma, in history’s wheel and that assess our presence or absence in the stage of world events?

The question of efficiency is maybe becoming sharper day after day, with the profusion of new means, the interaction between different relationships and the sudden transition from the problem of scarcity to the problem of profusion, which doesn’t give the relaxed minds any opportunity to find an excuse in the lack of material means. Indeed, the question of efficiency proceeds from the interior world of man, and is very lightly influenced by exterior realities or external causes and material spurs. 

When the individual human being or when the collective society sets out in civilization’s paths jogging or running, or even walking slowly, it is necessary to be aware beforehand that difficulties will pop up in the way. If such difficulties are not present in mind or if man or society supposes that hardships won’t exist, they will undoubtedly be disappointed and will stop at the beginning of their way. This is why it is necessary to ask:”what thing do hardships express when they pop up in our path or when we face them?”

No doubt that difficulties are healthy signs in civilization’s motion, if only they are dealt with in full consciousness and understanding, i.e. not letting them be submerged in an ocean of endless considerations, nor summing them up into one or two reasons.

In the same context of difficulties and hindering factors, Bennabi asks about our contemporary revival (nahda), why did it stay backwards while other similar movements managed to progress? Why didn’t it reach its objective even if it had started in 1868 and it marked its presence in the stage of world events in different forms and ways?

For this reason, Bennabi started to scrutinize the situation, asking: “the problem, in its new form, is to ask ourselves: did the effect of obstacles that hindered the Arab revival end or not yet?”

The clear answer, directed to the new generation, expresses -without leaving place to any doubt- how necessary research centers are and how indispensable it is to put the collective mind into work, and this is what is called, in the Rushd model as the scientific groups, he says : “It is clear that we don’t have at hand anything to answer this question with a convincing response, because it needs an objective research that we didn’t make and we know of nobody who has made such a study so far”, i.e. we are still waiting for someone to fulfill this collective civilizational mission, in the absence of which, we’ll remain using guessing as a way to rule, and trial and error as a way of action.

If we present our situation, as an Umma, in the universal and world context, not only after World War Two, as Malek Bennabi wrote about it, but also after the invasion of Iraq and Syria, the Arab revolutions, the terrorism bugaboo and the hegemony of modern media, we should ask ourselves bitterly and say: “it has became a necessity for each people to present the best of means it possesses in order to know its place among other peoples. Undoubtedly this will put us besides a question mark popping up in our path and requiring us strongly to answer this question: what is our share in this new world?”

We are not waiting for a hasty response to this inquiry. Indeed the response should be intellectual, practical and civilizational, and it should a mission of huge collective efforts done by laboratories, universities and institutions that would be able to meet the challenges and fulfill the expectations.

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