The Constructed Ethical Civilization in the Philosophy of Malek Bennabi and Its Consequences

Document Type : Research Article / Original Article

Authors

1 Phd student of ethics, University of Qom, Qom, Iran.

2 Phd student of ethics, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

3 Associate Professor of Ethics Department, University of Qom, Qom, Iran.

Abstract

This article examines the civilizational thought of Malek Bennabi and demonstrates how his critique of the foundational assumptions of Western civilization provides the groundwork for Islamic civilizational renewal. Bennabi argues that Western civilization presupposes a universal truth and regards the civilization it has produced as the ultimate embodiment of that truth. By contrast, he maintains that truth is situated and communitarian: each ummah is endowed with a form of truth corresponding to its collective capacity, and no community may claim exclusive access to absolute truth. According to Bennabi, these communal truths are context-bound and contingent. He identifies a range of factors that condition and delimit truth, emphasizing in particular the dominant spirit of a people and the culture that permeates social life as the primary constituents of civilizational truth. This study adopts a comparative-analytical approach to examine Bennabi’s civilizational ethics and political thought. The research is based on library sources and employs thematic content analysis to extract core conceptual patterns from Bennabi’s writings. The findings indicate that Bennabi’s civilizational framework assigns Muslims the responsibility of constructing a distinctive civilization aligned with their own talents and dispositions. His ethical schema culminates in a form of communitarian deontology, in which moral obligation is conferred upon the moral agent by the ummah. Within this paradigm, war is valorized over peace, insofar as every civilization is required to engage in continuous struggle to preserve its identity. Moreover, Bennabi’s model entails the fusion of religion and politics, rendering ethics subordinate to religion and challenging the normative authority of Western human rights discourse. From this perspective, each ummah is entitled to construct a legal system consistent with its own civilizational ethos.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Amoli, S. H. (2014). Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār. Tehran, Iran: Elmi wa Farhangi.
Bennabi, Malek. (1969). Intāj al-mustashriqīn wa atharuhu fī al-fikr al-islāmī al-ḥadīth. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Irshad.
Bennabi, Malek. (1971). Shurūṭ al-nahḍa. Lebanon: Majallat al-Fikr al-Islami.
Bennabi, Malek. (1981). Al-ṣirāʿ al-fikrī. Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikr.
Bennabi, Malek. (2000). Al-qaḍāyā al-kubrā. Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikr.
Bennabi, Malek. (2000). Mushkilat al-thaqāfa. Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikr.
Bennabi, Malek. (2002). Mushkilat al-afkār fī al-ʿālam al-islāmī. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Fikr al-Muʿasir.
Bennabi, Malek. (2005). Min ajl al-taghīr. Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikr.
Fanaei, Abdolkarim. (2015). Akhlaq-e din-shenasi. Tehran, Iran: Negah-e Moʿaser.
Hanafi, Hassan. (1982). Ilahiyyat-e Spinoza (M. Zamani & H. Farhadi, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: Negah-e Moʿaser.
Ibn ʿArabi, Muhyiddin. (1946). Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Abu al-ʿAla ʿAfifi, Ed.). Cairo, Egypt: Dar Ihyaʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya.
Ibn ʿArabi, Muhyiddin. (n.d.). Al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Sadir.
Jadʿan, Fahmi. (1988). Usus al-taqaddum ʿinda mufakkiri al-islam fī al-ʿalam al-ʿarabi al-ḥadith. Alexandria, Egypt: Dar al-Shuruq.
Kant, Immanuel. (2008). Naqd al-ʿaql al-ʿamali (Gh. Hana, Trans.). Beirut, Lebanon: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-ʿArabiyya.
Kant, Immanuel. (2015a). Toward a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose (B. Parham, Trans.). USA: Tavaana Institute.
Kant, Immanuel. (2015b). Perpetual peace (B. Parham, Trans.). USA: Tavaana Institute.
Kazembeygi, Mohammad Ali, et al. (2020). Tabyin-e ravesh-e Malek Bennabi dar husul-e maʿrefat-e ejtemaʿi. Majalleh-ye Raveshshenasi-ye ʿUlum-e Ensani, 103, 73–84.
Mehrniya, Hamid, & Zamani Alavijeh, Mohammad. (2020). Logic of Hegel as an epistemological-ontological method for the unification of thought and being. Logic Research, 2(11), 251–271.
Mirzaei, Mohammad Ali, et al. (2020). An introduction to the civilizational political theology in the thought of Malek Bennabi. Political Science Journal (Baqer al-ʿUlum University), 90, 101–125.
Mirzaei, Naser. (2014). A general review of basic concepts of Islamic civilization in the thought of Malek Bennabi. Naqd wa Nazar, 74, 88–116.
Mosleh, Ahmad. (2016). Hegel. Tehran, Iran: Elmi Publications.
Nuzzo, Angelica. (2024). Approaching Hegel’s logic, obliquely (H. Nikbakht, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: Qoqnoos.
Rauch, Leo. (2016). The age of German idealism (M. Hosseini, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: Hekmat.
Sayyid Qutb. (n.d.). Khaṣāʾiṣ al-taṣawwur al-islāmī wa maqawwimātuhu. Alexandria, Egypt: Dar al-Shuruq.
Zakirzadeh, Ali. (2012). Falsafe-ye Hegel. Tehran, Iran: Elham.
Zamani, Mohammad. (2025). Hikmat-e motaʿaliya-ye tahlili: Bonyadgozari-ye metafizik-e zuhurshenakhti. Tehran, Iran: Negah-e Moʿaser.
Social Theories of Muslim Thinkers
Volume 15, Issue 4
December 2025
Pages 1-18

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 28 January 2025
  • Revise Date: 21 June 2025
  • Accept Date: 07 July 2025
  • Publish Date: 22 December 2025

Share

How to cite

Statistics