Malek Bennabi’s Intellectual and Methodological Horizon in Analysis and Theorization: Epistemic Coalescence and Interdisciplinarity

"The Conditions of the Renaissance is one of Malek Bennabi’s most well-known books, in which his vision of civilization is as being the result of the encounter between man, soil, and time catalyzed by an idea that endows them with significance, value, and efficacy. This idea, however, finds its foundation and anchoring in an earlier work, namely The Qur’anic Phenomenon (1947), which Bennabi wrote in the midst of the buzzing bombardments of World War II and under its smog and smoke. In congruence with these two books, Malek Bennabi continued his scholarship in the form of books and articles (making up so far 17 volumes) in his treatment of issues pertaining to man and society in the arenas of culture, economy, politics, history, etc. He adopted an approach in which he diverged from the prevailing norm among ‘specialist’ scholars and researchers in the humanities and social sciences, and at a time when going beyond one’s established theoretical categories and methodological frameworks could mean being branded as renegade or abnormal. His effort was a methodologically integrated and epistemologically holistic pursuit to analyze, explain, and comprehend human social phenomena."