Resumen de Mohamed Talbi’s Discussion of Ibn Khaldūn as the ‘Pioneer Of Reason and Modernity
Fitzroy Morrissey, Ronald L. Nettler
This article offers the first extended analysis of a section of Liyaṭmaʾinna qalbī (2007), a late work of the prominent Tunisian liberal modernist Islamic thinker and medieval historian Mohamed Talbi (1921–2017). Through a close reading of the introduction and first chapter of this work, we present Talbi’s views on the famous North African philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), whom Talbi considers the ‘pioneer of reason and modernity’ and ‘the progenitor of modernity’ before modernity itself. Paying close attention to Talbi’s treatment of Ibn Khaldūn’s rationalism, empiricism, and supposed anticipation of modern scientific theories, as well as his relationship with philosophy and the thought of his own age, we detect in Talbi’s discussion an implicit conception of history, reason, and revelation, in which a ‘revelatory’ divine–human encounter can continually recur, through God’s grace (faḍl), in the mind of the individual believer. In an epilogue, we offer a brief comparison between this conception of history and that of the Lutheran theologian and Biblical scholar Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976).
