Course Duration: 10 weeks

Cost: $9.95/week charged in one sum of $99.50 on enrolment or two monthly payments of $49.75

Start Date: Saturday, April 11, 2020

Time: 7:00 PM AEST 

The Course at a Glance:

• Study the biography of Malek Bennabi
• Study Bennabi's concept of an-nahḍa, the renaissance of Muslims
• Translation of selected excerpts from Bennabi's major works
• Students will be able to ask questions during interactive live sessions
• The course runs for 10 weeks

About the Course:

Malek Bennabi (1323-1393 AH/1905-1973 CE) was one of the most subversive and insightful Muslim intellectuals in the Twentieth Century. His work is considered to be an extension of Ibn Khaldun. In a series of books he published under the title The Problems of Civilization, Bennabi penned an insightful analysis of the political, social, and cultural conditions that permeated the post-colonial Muslim world. 

What is unique about his treatment of this subject is that Bennabi drew on his study of religion, history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy to provide an assessment of not only the post-colonial period but also of what has made the Muslim world colonizable in the first place. 

Bennabi's contributions were premised on a conviction that Islam is a mobilizing force to bring about the rejuvenation, and ultimately liberation, of Muslims by first recognizing and shedding the inferiority complex born out of a history of colonialist subjugation. His series The Problems of Civilization is a consciousness-raising tour-de-force of collective self-critical analysis, which also offered tools for realizing the God-given agency for self-determination.

Reading Malek Bennabi is a 10-week course where selections from his works will be examined and discussed in live lectures through translation from Arabic, including commentary and analysis by Dr. Mohamed Ghilan. The aim of this course is to strengthen a multidimensional understanding of the problems that permeate the Muslim psyche through an examination of extracts from his most important works, thus making Bennabi's ideas available to students in the English-speaking world.

Course Schedule: