Memorial Speech for Sadiq Jalal al-Azm

On this occasion, I have to admit here that despite my studies of philosophy and Immanuel Kant at the Humboldt University in Berlin, I read Sadiq’s dissertation on Kant’s Theory of Time as one of the black copy books in Damascus – but I never understood it as much as I tried. This immensely increased my respect for the author, of course. But more remarkably, although I was a bit disappointed about myself, it did not matter at all. Not for him, and not for me, because most of the intellectual exchange with him took place orally, in hour-long and night-long conversations, interrupted with witty humour, laughter and human warmth.

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Recollection along my Father’s Journey

Many of you are here to honour Sadik, the thinker, the public intellectual, the philosopher, and the teacher. Others are here in memory of a friend. I am here to honour my father.

I would like to start by saying that Sadik lived his life as he saw fit. He described his life’s journey as “prolific, full and rich, a journey which I enjoyed tremendously, a life with no regrets”. In other words, he did it his way. Just like the Frank Sinatra song.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd 21st issue spring 2018

he lived most of his life in his home land, but his work was effective in the entire Arab world … he died secluded in exile in Berlin where he lived the last few years of his life.

Sadiq Jalal al-Azm is considered as one of the pioneers of Arab Modernism and an outstanding scholar of critical thought in the Arab world.
Al-Azm achieved great fame in 1968 and 1969 with the publishing of his works “Self-criticism after the defeat” and “Critique of Religious Thought”, in which he radically attacked central dogmas of political and religious-cultural discourse within Arab society.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd: 20th Issue autumn 2016

we warmly welcome you to this new edition of Minbar Ibn Rushd, our online magazine. Here are our topics:

In December 2015 the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik – SWP) in Berlin published a study entitled “The bitter harvest of the Arab Spring. Transformation, the change of the elite and a new social Mobilization” by Dr. Muriel Asseburg and Heiko Wimmen, now translated into Arabic and reviewed here by Dr. Hamid Fadlalla and Fadia Foda. The article summarises the main points of the study and discusses the development, aftermath and perspective of the Arab Spring revolutions. After this extensive analysis, which examines the dimensions of this wide movement and the regional and international complications, the conclusion reached is that it is a bitter harvest after five years of instability.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd 19th issue Spring 2016

We are opening the issue with an essay by Rachid Boutayeb from Morocco entitled “The body of the other (towards a post-Islamic subjectivity)”. Islam, he says, being religion, culture and history, has made an important contribution to civilization in all of these aspects. Those, who want to deny this – out of a sense of anger or prejudice or ignorance – will be laying the ground for racist discourse, which contradicts even the fundamental values of democracy. On the other hand, those, who speak about Islam as something absolute, are demanding nothing less than that Islam should enforce its authority. The author recalls that the Koran says that man – every man – is God’s successor (Caliph) on earth. Each of us bears responsibility for life in the world. However, what we see today with the tyrannical rule of the regime in light of the confederacy of religious orthodoxy is a great distortion of this concept and of religion.

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Editorial – 19th issue spring 2016

We are opening the issue with an essay by Rachid Boutayeb from Morocco entitled “The body of the other (towards a post-Islamic subjectivity)”. Islam, he says, being religion, culture and history, has made an important contribution to civilization in all of these aspects. Those, who want to deny this – out of a sense of anger or prejudice or ignorance – will be laying the ground for racist discourse, which contradicts even the fundamental values of democracy. On the other hand, those, who speak about Islam as something absolute, are demanding nothing less than that Islam should enforce its authority. The author recalls that the Koran says that man – every man – is God’s successor (Caliph) on earth.

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Excerpt from the novel “al-Qawqa’a. Yawmiyyat mutalassis” (The Shell. Memoirs of a Hidden Observer)

Mustafa Khalifa I wrote most of these diaries in the desert prison. But the word “wrote” isn’t quite accurate. There are neither pens nor paper to write on in the desert prison. This colossal structure—made up of Courtyard Zero, seven more courtyards, thirty-seven dormitories, new, unnumbered dormitories, cells in the fifth courtyard, and still more […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 18th issue Winter 2015/2016

Table of Contents EditorialGerman English Arabic Arab Prison Literature Radwa Ashour – EgyptEnglish Experience with writing – Afterword to the autobiography “Dreams of freedom”            Aisha Odeh – Palestine            German The slow death of Muhammad Lghalu “- translated excerpt from the autobiography” Tazmamart: az-Zinzana raqam 10 (Tazmamart, cellule no. 10) Ahmed Marzouki – MoroccoGerman Excerpt from the novel […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 16th issue winter 2014/2015

Table of Contents Editorial Abier BushnaqEnglish  German  Arabic Democracy in the Arab World. What chances does it have? Jörg Armbruster – GermanyArabic  German Navid Kermani’s Speech before the German Bundestag on the 65th anniversary of the Basic LawNavid Kermani – GermanyArabic  German A culture of tolerance, the tolerance of ambiguity Rachid Boutayeb – MoroccoArabic Masculinity […]

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Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes)’ views on women. By Nadia Harhash

Ibn Rushd’s work and Influences Abu al-Walid Muhammad Ibn-Rushd, also known as Averroes in the West, was born in 1126 A.D (died in 1198) in Cordova. His ideas influenced the transformation of thought in medieval Europe. He is considered the last of the great Muslim thinkers who integrated Islamic traditions and Greek thought. His beliefs […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 15th issue spring 2014

Table of Contents Editorial Abier BushnaqEnglish  German  Arabic Darwin‘s Theaory of Evolution: Dusty hypothesis or luminous reality Habib Abd ar-Rabb Sururi – YemenArabic Palestinian Literature after Oslo: A testimony Ahmad Harb – PalestineArabic Power and the mentality of exploitation Ahmad al-Barqawi – Palestine/SyriaArabic The Moroccan youth between the individual and the collective I Abu Azm […]

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Sudan/South Sudan Conference, Hermannsburg, Germany 2012 – Speech held by Hamid Fadlalla

Dear Marina, dear HermannLadies and Gentlemen Since a quarter of a century we have been meeting every year in Hermannsburg, this charming and delightful city in Lower Saxony,  at the invitation of Sudan Forum and Sudan Focal Point – Europe to examine and discuss key issues on Sudan. Over a quarter of a century I […]

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Members of the Jury of the Ibn Rushd School Magazine Project

Ibn Rushd Prize for School Journalism 2013Competition between four groups of pupils – two from a girls’ school and two from a boys’ school in Tulkarm/Palestine Dr. Hamid FadlallaHamid Fadlalla is a Sudanese specialist doctor and author, resident of Berlin. He is member of the Executive Committee of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in […]

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Young Journalists

Young journalists was a press competition project for pupils of from each one boys and one girls school in Tulkarem – Palestine A joint work between the Palestinian Ministry of Education and the Ibn Rushd Foundation for Free Thought.
This is to activate the student’s relationship with problems in their environment and to discuss them completely freely. The competition took place for a period of three months, during which students participating had to go to libraries and the Internet in search for sources of news.

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Utopia Choir – “The people demand the life of the square” by Dr. Faiha Qasem Abdulhadi

“Tomorrow, when we bring all cowards to justice… Egypt will live safely”The Revolution Utopia Choir The Egyptian popular revolution was characterized by the accurate slogans it launched since its eruption on January 25, 2011. It found its artistic expression in The Revolution Utopia Choir, one of the creative cultural events, which took place in Egypt […]

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Interview with Sami Kilani ”The Symbol of Resistance Is Not the Bullet!”

How do you define the term “non-violence”?Sami Kilani: Non-violence means respect for another person. I reject the notion of degrading another as a person or as a society and thereby regarding them as something less human. This means applying the same standards to another person as you would to yourself.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 12th issue, winter 2011/2012

Table of contents EditorialEnglish German Arabic Secular State and the Problem of Religion: Turkey as Example            Sadiq Jalal al-Azm – Syria            Arabic Mohamed Abed al-Jabri: Analyzing Cultural Heritage for the Sake of Modernism            Ghassan Ali Osman – Sudan            Arabic Interview with Abdalla an-Naim: „It is not Possible to Keep Religion Totally out of our Life“            […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 11th issue, winter 2010/2011

Table of Contents EditorialArabic German English Socialize or Emigrate – Arab-Islamic Migrants are part of the Problem of Discrimination and Isolation            Ghassan Ibrahim – Syria/England            Arabic The Crisis of Integration Process of Muslims and Arabs in Germany            Hamid Fadlalla – Sudan/Germany            German The Command of Tolerance in Democratic Immigration Society – Integration and Leading Culture            Gari Pavkovic […]

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The Arabic Critical Discourse – Between the heritage integration and the horizon of interpretation by Dr. Khalid Slaiki

“However the problems of reading do not stop at the limits of exploring the meanings in their historical contexts but rather exceed this in an attempt to reach the modern ‘significance’ of a heritage text, in any cognitive domain. Also, I do not think that to reach the ‘significance’ is a matter of choice, since […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 10th issue summer 2010

Index EditorialArabic German English Methodical Introduction into the Study of Arab-Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages Muhammad Ahmad az-Zoebi  – Syria/GermanyArabic Why Scientific Thinking has Failed in Modern Arab ThoughtAbd ar-Razzaq Id – Syria/FranceArabic Progressive Thought in Contemporary Islam – A Critical ApproachChristian W. Troll – GermanyArabic The Arab Critical Discourse – Between the Heritage Integration […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 8th issue winter 2006

Dear reader! Starting from the assumption that there must be found a way out of the dilemma of terrorism and that the reasons for the crisis in the relationship between the Islamic world and the West must be overcome by working out a solution together, a group of German diplomats, who have formally served in Arab countries, addressed the EU with an open letter of appeal.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 6th issue autumn 2004

On August the 28th 2004 in Oxford the annual meeting „Project for Democracy Studies in the Arab World“ took place for the 14th time. This meeting of Arab academics is extraordnary, has it not indeed established itself throughout the years as a highly respected forum, in which modern Arab intellectuals elaborate on current issues that move the emotions of millions of Arabs around the world to find solutions for what seems to be insoluble. It is remarkable that this project, which was founded in the middle of Europe, has since then been a forum organized by Arabs for Arabs.

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Averroës – The Great Muslim Philosopher Who Planted The Seeds of the European Renaissance

Abû al-Walîd Muhammad Ibn Rushd, better known in the West as Averroës, but also in medieval times as Avén Ruiz and Averrhoes, was born in 1126 A.D. in Cordova, once the illustrious capital of Moorish Spain. The descendant of a distinguished Cordovan family of scholars, he was the third generation of his lineage to hold the office of qâdî (judge). One of the foremost figures of Arab civilization, he became known as the ‘Prince of Science’, – the master of jurisprudence, mathematics, medicine and, above all, philosophy.

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Minbar Ibn Ruhsd – 5th issue Summer 2004

We are most happy to be able to present to you some new interesting contributions from the Arab World. Please have a look! Three articles go back to the 12th Century to trace back the relevance Ibn Rushd and Ibn Arabi might have in modern times. In his compact presentation Abeeb Salloum tries to characterize Ibn Rushd by understanding his work and influence in his time. Mohamed Mesbahi applies Postmodern theory on reinterpreting Ibn Rushd’s and Ibn Arabi’s work from a new modern perspective. Hakam Abdel-Hadi takes the occasion of the IBN RUSHD Prize 2003, awarded to Muhamed Arkoun, to deliberate on the reasons for deteriorated conditions and political failures in the presence.

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Minbar Ibn Rushd 4th issue spring 2003

Contents Editorial Abier BushnaqArabic German How to Confront Empire Arundhati RoyArabic A Difficult Journey to Palestine Hakam Abdel-HadiArabic German Evaluating Arabic Websites and Web Search Engines: Supply of Information in the Field of Media and Culture Abier BushnaqGerman Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American Literature: Translation Grants for Books by Arab […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd, 3rd issue winter 2002

Table of Contents Editorial Abier BushnaqGerman Ibn Rushd’s Contribution to the Improvement of Arab Women’s Right Dr. George TamerArabic Moslems in Secular state: From Civil Rights to Social Commitment Heiner BielefeldtArabic New Secularism in the Arab World Ghassan F. AbdullahEnglish Criticism of Civilisation in the Arabic Literature of the 19.th Century, Ahmad Faris ash-Shidyaq Abier […]

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Geographies of the Self: Text and Space in Anton Shammas’s Arabesques*

Christian Szyska After its publication Anton Shammas’s Galilean family saga Arabeskot set in motion intense debates among literary critics about the Jewishness of Hebrew literature. [1] The interest among the general public for this semi-autobiographical novel of an Arab Israeli has been accompanied by ongoing scholarly debate.[1] All critics are aware of the central importance […]

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Minbar Ibn Rushd – 2nd Issue summer 2001

Table of Contents Editorial Abier BushnaqArabic German Human Rights in the Age of Globalization: An Arab Point of View Mohamed FayekArabic German Globalization and the Lack of a Common Arab Policy Muhannad Ibrahim Abu LatifaArabic Globalization and the Fears of the Arab World Kadhim A. HabibArabic Al-Multaqa ath-Thaqafi al-Arabi in Berlin Presents Itself Sa’id AlameddineArabic […]

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