Colonialism and colonisabilitlty in Malik Bennabi's political thought

Abstract

Malik Bennabi’s ideas on colonialism and colonisablity, unlike his history and civilization, has until now received less attention than it deserves from the researchers on him. The present study aimed to examine Bennabi’s ideas on colonialism and Colonisability. After the clarification of the biography of Bennabi, this study began with the exposition of colonialism and colonisability, and how society became “colonizable”. Bennabi believed that colonialism is not the major reason for the deterioration of the Muslim world. Contrary to that, he insisted that colonialism is an inevitable consequence of what he called ‘colonisability’. Colonisability is the state of internal weakness and susceptibility to colonization in the Muslim world. Colonisability is not an innate mental state in society, but it happens due to the breakdown of the social relation network and the religious idea from its ideal. When the relations between the realm of persons, ideas, and objects are torn apart, the historical movement of the society will not function. Then, society arrives at the end of the dynamism and goes through a state of backwardness and decline when the religious idea ceases to synthesize the civilizational values of society. At this moment, the society becomes susceptible to colonization. In the course of Muslim history, Bennabi dated this phenomenon from the fall of the Al-Muwaḥḥid dynasty (1130-1269 A.D), which was the fall of the Islamic civilization. Then the decadence era commenced with what he called the Post-Muwaḥḥidūn man. After all the above-mentioned points have been clarified, this work provided the necessary actions that the Muslim world should undertake according to Bennabi. The first and fundamental action that should be undertaken is to liberate the Post-Muwaḥḥidūn man from colonisability. Then it must be followed by reorganizing and utilizing the basic element of society, namely, man, soil, and time, and reorienting the role of persons.