Culture & Social Affairs

Al Majalla's Book Watch

A tour of the latest releases from Arabic publishing houses on topics covering fiction, philosophy, science, history, and politics.

Al Majalla's Book Watch

Khodr Al Agha
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The Arab world has a vibrant and rich literary scene. Al Majalla picks out some choice titles in our fortnightly round-up of the latest Arabic books, which aims to highlight some trends and thinking in the Arab world.

'The Philosopher’s Way' by Jean Wahl

The Philosopher’s Way

Author: Jean Wahl

Translator: Ahmed Hamdi Mahmoud

Study and Introduction: Ahmed Al-Ansari

Publisher: Roueya Publishing & Distribution, Egypt

For students and enthusiasts of philosophy, French writer Jean Wahl’s 1948 book The Philosophers Way is increasingly seen as indispensable. Appealing beyond the specialist to a more general audience, it traces the development of philosophical ideas, examining the positions of different schools of thought and explaining their historical context. First published in Arabic in 1967, the book has recently been reissued in recognition of its value and status.

Wahl’s book defines and redefines numerous philosophical concepts with precision, clarity and analytical depth, yet it has a straightforward and lucid style despite its breadth, the table of contents alone revealing the diversity of topics it explores, including metaphysics, substance, being, existence, reality, becoming, essence, form, quantity, quality, freedom, theories of knowledge, value, the soul, and dialectics.

The book is a compilation of lectures the author delivered at various academic institutions, and as the publisher notes, this distinguishes it from the wave of simplified philosophy books that gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s such as The Story of Philosophy and The Pleasures of Philosophy. Wahl’s offering presents philosophy not as mere theoretical discourse or historical record, but as a lived and vital experience.

'Shifting Shadows: With Usama ibn Munqidh in Turkey' by Adi al-Zoubi

Shifting Shadows: With Usama ibn Munqidh in Turkey

Author: Adi al-Zoubi

Publisher: Khan al-Janoub, Germany

Syrian writer Adi al-Zoubi journeys through Turkey in the footsteps of medieval poet Usama ibn Munqidh through, a figure with whom the author feels a profound kinship, especially in their shared experiences of exile, and loss of homeland and family. Born more than 900 years ago, Usama travelled extensively, including in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and along the Tigris River, while also making a pilgrimage to Hajj. Many of his family members died in an earthquake in Syria, north-west of Hama. The echoes of displacement and estrangement ring loud across Syria today.

The journey, therefore, is steeped in sorrow, despair and anguish. “I too stand at a crossroads,” the author says. “After the collapse of hopes in a world that does not care for us, after Syria’s descent into an abyss with no end, after my failure to organise my material, emotional, familial, and personal life, and after long years burdened with restless wanderings, I decided to travel to Upper Mesopotamia”.

Usama ibn Munqidh spent a decade in Hisn Kayfa, an ancient town along the Tigris in south-eastern Turkey, where today there are large Kurdish populations. It was here that he composed most of his works and contemplated his destiny. Through this pilgrimage, the author seeks to understand both Usama and himself, despite their many differences (for instance, Usama was a knight, whereas al-Zoubi fears weapons).

The Usama he pursues was sociable and welcome in the courts of rulers and leaders, where he got entangled in political intrigues. Both men explore issues such as fate, calamity, and distraction in a dark and unforgiving world. Ultimately, this is a profoundly personal book, yet it also captures the collective experiences of countless Syrians forced into exile. In this context, Usama ibn Munqidh emerges as a persistent presence: a symbol of pain, estrangement, and the loss of loved ones.

'Martyrdom Across Cultures and Religions' by Ayoub Aboudiyeh

Martyrdom Across Cultures and Religions

Author: Ayoub Aboudiyeh

Publisher: Arab Scientific Publishers, Lebanon

The notion of martyrdom—dying in the name of a cause, nation, idea or leader—is not exclusive to any single culture or religion; rather, it is a shared thread woven through the fabric of civilisations, used by humanity to ennoble death, giving it meaning and permanence across time.

In Martyrdom Across Cultures and Religions, Jordanian author Ayoub Aboudiyeh explores this idea across the world’s cultures and faiths, examining how it emerged, evolved and ultimately became a creative response to the existential certainty of death. Aboudiyeh presents martyrdom as a shared human legacy that has long served to unite different peoples through common values and meaning.

This is not a historical account of how various traditions have perceived martyrdom. Instead, it maps global cultural patterns, which helps to explain why the appeal of martyrdom has never waned but continues to resonate through religions, civilisations and even the routine behaviours of everyday life. To associate martyrdom exclusively with Islam, the author argues, is to fundamentally misunderstand a concept that has been intellectually, emotionally and psychologically embedded in the lives of peoples throughout history.

All Abrahamic religions regard martyrdom as a noble form of sacrifice, though they differ in context and interpretation

All Abrahamic religions, he says, regard martyrdom as a noble form of sacrifice, though they differ in context and interpretation. In Judaism and Christianity, martyrdom is often linked to the defence of religious belief. In Islam, it assumes broader and more intricate dimensions, encompassing not only striving in the way of God (jihad), but also defending one's property, honour, land and justice.

For Aboudiyeh, martyrdom has served as a mechanism for defending nation, family, creed, justice, and leadership. It has also functioned as a creative escape from the confrontation with death, a means of transmitting moral instruction and providing ethical models. Despite its disparate origins, the act of martyrdom reveals a powerful global interconnectedness. Cultures have shared motifs, themes and archetypes, pointing to a universal human heritage that transcends sectarian and cultural boundaries.

'Jabrism' by Abdelrahim Khalis

Jabrism: A Call to Reopen the Debate on the Approaches to Critiquing Contemporary Arab Reason

Author: Abdelrahim Khalis
Introduction: Mohamed Hammam
Publisher: Moroccan Observatory

The term 'jabrism' refers to the ideas, opinions and intellectual perspectives of the late Moroccan thinker Mohamed Abed Al-Jabri (1935–2010). In this book, author Abdelrahim Khalis calls for a renewed reflection on the dilemmas and questions that shape modern Arab thought, with all its faults and merits.

Al-Jabri was a prolific philosopher, university professor, politician, and educator, whose scholarly legacy extended far beyond Morocco. His output reflects a deep and wide-ranging intellectual base. Most notably, his multi-volume Critique of Arab Reason cemented his status and played a central role in reviving interest in Arab and Islamic heritage by engaging deeply with its historical, philosophical and cultural dimensions.

Khalis ponders the reasons behind the stagnation of contemporary Arab and Islamic thought at various points in history and offers ways of overcoming it, enabling the Arab individual to enrich their culture, civilisation, aspirations and mental framework.

The author's focus is on reviving critical engagement with the present by adopting the mindset of the modern Arab subject. This intellectual effort, he argues, could better equip the Arab. The book therefore serves both as a call to rekindle the spirit of Jabrism, and as a thoughtful inquiry into new ways of advancing Arab realities and intellectual potential through varied approaches and methodologies.

'Hermeneutics as a Method of Interpretation in the Thought of Amin al-Khouli' by Abduljabbar Al-Rifai

Hermeneutics as a Method of Interpretation in the Thought of Amin al-Khouli

Author: Abduljabbar Al-Rifai
Publisher: House of Cultural Affairs, Iraq

In this book, hermeneutics is presented as a method for translating religious texts—specifically the Qur'an—by recontextualising them from the linguistic and societal frameworks of the time of revelation and early codification into those of later eras. The premise is that the meaning of a text takes on the characteristics of the interpretative vessel in which it is placed.

Just as water adopts the shape and colour of its container, texts derive their meanings from the interpretive tools and methodologies applied to them. Although these vessels may be reused, they tend to produce results that are substantively and qualitatively similar, even if the formulations, expressions and stylistic elements vary.

This study examines the interpretative approach of Sheikh Amin al-Khouli, which Al-Rifai describes as hermeneutics, the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of religious works. Al-Rifai thinks the sheikh was the first Arab—and possibly the first Muslim—to articulate a hermeneutic approach to religious texts.

According to the author, al-Khouli felt that "the person interpreting a text colours it" with their own understanding. "The interpreter determines, through his personality, the intellectual level of the text and sets the mental horizon of its meaning and implications. He does all this in accordance with his own cognitive and intellectual scope. He cannot escape the boundaries of his own personality, nor can he transcend it. He will only understand from the text what his intellect and thought can reach. To that extent, he controls and defines the text's expression."

Al-Rifai suggests that al-Khouli borrowed the phrase "colours the text" from the well-known Sufi aphorism by Junayd of Baghdad: "The colour of water is the colour of its container." Through a hermeneutic lens, al-Khouli evaluates schools of Qur'anic interpretation, and finds that the interpreter's imprint is always discernible. Every reading reflects the personality and intellectual character of its author, regardless of claims to objectivity or neutrality.

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