The Conditions of Renaissance in a New World

This paper aims to examine the thesis of Malek Bennabi and its intellectual and historical context, and his tendency to critique the path of intellectual disintegration, which he called “colonizability,” and its application to his intellectual project of the ‘Renaissance’—which regenerates the Islamic civilization once again after diagnosing its defects, in light of the presence of European factor and the glamor of its model. In addition to the Islamic renewal and reformist movement in his time were all subsequent developments of the rise of socialism and the expanding capitalist domination. The book, “The Conditions of the Renaissance,” which was published 1949, was a reflection of the mentioned situation according to Bennabi’s vision. This seems clear from the title of the book, which let Bennabi start from a practical criterion that differed fundamentally from all the approaches of thinkers and writers who spoke about the Renaissance in various ways. This makes us look at the ideas of Bennabi that enable us to overcome the barriers set by globalization and the way it has led Islamic thought to a kind of borrowing from the West and a departure from its objectives. That borrowing has been conducted in a manner that cannot be explained in an effective educational project to rebuild our Ummah, because of the absence of guiding standards and strategic direction.