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“Is there a Moroccan Thought?”

By Idriss Jebari

Book cover showing a mosaic.
Book cover of Mohammed Hashas (ed.), Contemporary Moroccan Thought: On Philosophy, Theology, Society, and Culture, Brill 2025.

This text constitute the remarks given at a round table during the National book fair held in Rabat on 19.05.2025.

The question “Is there a Moroccan Thought?” drives the recent volume Contemporary Moroccan Thought by Mohamed Hashas (University of Rome Tor Vergata), published earlier this year by Brill.

This is a monumental book, the fruit of over a decade of research. It is closely tied to the identity of its editor. Hashas possesses a wide and in-depth view of the Moroccan and Arab intellectual landscape and the researchers that are currently shaping the emerging field of “Moroccan Thought.” The result is the only book on the market containing such a rich examination of this subject.[1] It contains studies on well-known thinkers (al-Jabri, Laroui, Khatibi), voices within modern Islam (Yacine, Lmrabet), poets and writers (Laabi, Kilito), or radicals in the opposition (Lamalif periodical, Jewish Communists).

Weighing close to 800 pages, Contemporary Moroccan Thought is more an encyclopedia than a monograph; and this short review could not do justice to the full volume nor all its contributions. Instead, my remarks focus on Hashas’s introductory essay titled “Rabat School of Thought: Tradition, Modernity, and Critique from the Edge.” At over 120 pages, it could represent a book in its own right. It contains the editor’s original and provocative answer to the above-mentioned question. In the following six points, I explore how it might be received by its different publics, and suggest the volume’s possible aftermaths.

The Canon of Moroccan Thought

Hashas locates “contemporary Moroccan thought” in the “Rabat School,” meaning the scholars “connected to Rabat university” as students or faculty members, in philosophy, history, religious studies, and literary studies. They constitute two generations of “leading intellectual figures that have marked the ‘contemporary’ period,” from the 1950s to the present.

Hashas reads them into a canon to reflect their importance:

These writers, scholars and thinkers are prominent in their fields and have influenced successive generations to the present day. Some of them have also written in languages other than Arabic. The scholars are widely read and considered influential inside Morocco, as well as in the Arab and Islamic worlds, are those who have written in Arabic and have engaged with its classical scholarship for decades. That is why Moroccan thought is Arab(ic) thought, and Arab(ic) thought includes Moroccan thought. As to the newly constitutionalized second national language of Tamazight, more will be said later (23f).

How can we reduce the whole Moroccan national tradition to one “school”? Most of the figures listed by Hashas have rarely, if ever, presented themselves as its members. Their projects are diverse and eclectic, while a “school” like a religious “madhab” supposes confluency.[2] Most observers might focus their objections on this label, and risk missing how Hashas has intended its significance. 

Instead, Hashas speaks of the “Rabat School” to capture the “the broad intellectual ambience the university created, the intellectual magnet it has become, and the influence it has had on the other modern universities founded in the country” (20). The author draws inspiration from other examples of an “intellectual ambience,” including the Fez milieu around al-Qarawiyyine or Andalusian high culture, where the likes of Ibn Rush, Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun “converge and intertwine” (97f). This model certainly offers an original entry into the object of contemporary Moroccan thought, and addresses some initial concerns about the book’s object.

Contemporary Moroccan Thought as a Typology

The thinkers that make up the Moroccan canon have more in common than their connection with the University of Rabat. For Hashas, they also ask: “to what extent do Moroccans need [Western modernity] to revisit their intellectual tradition and reform it for the betterment of individual, social and global affairs.” They tend to write in the Arabic language, drawing on the Arab-Islamic intellectual tradition (turath), and associate modernity with the West (56f).

To bring order to this diverse group, Hashas proposes a bespoke typology that intends to chronicle and systematize Moroccan thought. The typology is explained methodically: Moroccan thinkers fall under three categories: the “near-thought” [are those] concerned with the local, the specific;” the “far thought” are concerned with the regional, the universal;” then, “another category of thinking, namely the ‘other thought’ or different thinking.”

This attempt to systematize Moroccan thought is a valiant attempt to bring order to a diverse body of intellectual production. At times, it feels like the author is forcing logic and consistency where there might not be. Will the public and other researchers adopt these categories? Will they abandon the use of binaries – tradition/modernity, religious/secular etc. – to better understand Moroccan thought? Perhaps not. We might see audience members object to the relevance of this system for a multitude of reasons, including convenience.

Yet, this typology merits a close attention. First, the label offers a device to hold different conversations about the Moroccan intellectual field. Second, and most importantly in my view, Hashas has reconstituted the Moroccan intellectual tradition from within. He has theorized it from its own cases, by reconstituting its operating logics, rather than mimicking foreign ideological models. It puts Moroccanness in full focus, to better engage with other intellectual traditions.

Colourful streetart.
Photo by Georges Khalil.

Patterns of Reception: Beyond Morocco’s Marginality

The main scholarly fields that will receive this book – Arab intellectual history, MENA & Islamic studies – have long approached Morocco and North Africa as a “periphery.” Its intellectual history was not written for itself, but for others’ stakes, namely the debates of the Arab Nahda in the Arab center, or as a periphery of a francophone world attached to postcolonial Paris.

Contemporary Moroccan Thought helps to reverse this pattern by demonstrating that Morocco can be its own ecosystem of thought. Hashas reconstitutes Rabat as the center of this ecosystem, specifically by reconstituting its organizing logics. He proposes a “triangle” of sorts, composed of three major intellectual projects, each represented by one figurehead and its followers: the project of historicism (al-tarikhaniyya) of Abdallah Laroui; of criticism (al-naqd) by Muhammad Abed al-Jabri; and of trusteeship (al-i’timaniyya) by Abderrahman Taha. The author argues that the three thinkers were continuously writing, thinking, and responding to each other, and vying for readers; though they rarely confronted each other openly.

In so doing, Contemporary Moroccan Thought advances the Rabat School as Morocco’s center of thought, with its figures, logics, questions, and traditions. Whether this succeeds in changing Morocco’s image as a periphery remains to be seen. For the upcoming generation of Moroccan scholars, it gives them tools to challenge this narrative. This makes it an exciting time for the field.

Persons, Personalities, and Competing Intellectual Projects

While reading Contemporary Moroccan Thought, I found myself disagreeing with the author’s approach toward these “big philosophers.” First, the author adopts a traditional way of writing intellectual history where each individual man is introduced alongside a “big idea”, which is then set up in contrast to another man’s big idea. In so doing, Contemporary Moroccan Thought engages in the type of “logocentrism” which Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab warns against in the new edition of her Contemporary Arab Thought (2025, xxiii, xxv).

Second, the book appears to place conflict and confrontation at the heart of Moroccan thought and the Rabat school. In his tripartite structure, Hashas presents “al-Jabri as Taha’s main intellectual opponent, although Laroui appears with hints, and without clear reference to him by name.” (82). All of “al-Jabri, al-Khatibi, and Taha… have been critical of Laroui and have developed projects that differ from his historicism” and may have written their projects as “responses, both direct and indirect, to Laroui’s project.” The “differences among these philosophers in methodology” constitute the engine of the analysis, since for Hashas they “reflect their different attitudes to the world, the past, and the future.”

In reality, this does not constitute a criticism of a choice made by Hashas. Logocentrism and personalization constitute the conventional approach to read the Moroccan figures of this era. In a panel on Abdelkebir Khatibi at the Rabat book fair, philosopher Nourredine Affaya similarly couched his remarks in terms of opposition, citation, and dialogues.[3] This personalized approach may well be the most conventional, and well-established way of producing histories of ideas in Morocco: around personalities, schools of thought, and conflicts. This approach ensures interest from the public of specialists.

However, this approach also leaves many unanswered questions, and misses an opportunity to engage with new directions in the field.  How were ideas actually produced in Rabat? What was the impact of historical events on them? Are there examples of constructive debates or cross-pollination? How were they connected to other institutions such as parties or journals? In other words, I am here expressing a desire to see other approaches that tilt our focus toward the sociology of knowledge production and the life of epistemological communities. This represents the new frontier in global intellectual history today, as formulated by Kassab (2025, xxvii). It would certainly signal the field’s maturity and better self-understanding.

Scholarship or Thought?  

Hashas takes a strong position regarding the substance of contemporary Moroccan thought, specifically on “Moroccanness” or “Tamaghrabit.” He affirms that it is tied primarily to intellectual production and high culture in Arabic. He justifies his position by engaging with nationalistic historiographical tradition to back his position (such as Abdellah Guennoun). In so doing, Hashas takes position in the contentious debate on language, culture and identity. He also runs openly against an influential direction of scholarship currently embodied by other initiatives including Souffles Monde, or those working on religious diversity and pluralism in the country. Both are producing intellectual histories of Morocco in similar periods and have contributors in this volume.

Readers may be surprised to find this contentious interpretation, expressed almost as a public position. This contrasts with the more reserved and careful tone one expects to find in academic studies, especially around the contentious questions of national identity, language and politics.

This is not a shortcoming of the author’s methodology, if we reconfigure how we understand this book. In my opinion, Contemporary Moroccan Thought should also be read as a work of thought in itself, even though Mohamed Hashas may be too modest to present his work as such. Throughout the introduction, he enters into philosophical dialogues with his predecessors by interpreting and evaluating their big ideas. He is taking positions. His work echoes that of Wael Hallaq, another figure who writes in between academic scholarship and philosophical production, and with whom he dialogues in the last chapter. As such, I believe that we can dispense with disagreements over this book’s interpretations of one thinker or that another, and appreciate how it seeks to make its own intervention. Here, I am inspired by how historian Hussam Ahmad recently called Taha Hussein the “last Nahdawi,” and I wish to label Hashas the “successor of the Rabat School.”[4] 

Aftermaths: Memory and the Next Generation

By the end of the essay, the author explains that he wrote this book to provide a foundational text. As a starting point, it can “raise scholarly and perhaps also ordinary interest” from the public.

Speaking at the Rabat Book Fair today, I wonder how this book will contribute to Moroccans’ rapport with their contemporary intellectual heritage. Several panels have celebrated figures of this intellectual “Golden Age.” These events are seen as a way to reconnect Moroccans with their intellectual heritage and reaffirm their cultural identity. Most often, these events were composed of and attended by people who knew them, studied them, and came to celebrate them and each other along the way. They come together to address a desire for memory and recognition, as the poet Abdelatif Laabi explained on another panel, against the fear of “nisyan” (forgetting).

Are we inviting others in the conversation with their concerns with these events? Or are we limiting their ability to take this object over and make it their own by gatekeeping?

Idriss Jebari at the round table during the National book fair in Rabat. Photo: Private.

Contemporary Moroccan Thought does feed and address this desire for memory and recognition of the canon of contemporary Moroccan thought, all while valuing their intellectual contributions to scholarly debates. However, it risks overlooking another, more pressing concern being posed by the next generation of Moroccans to this intellectual heritage: not whether it exists, but what it can do for them. Here, I am keen to ask: where is it taking place? Under which forms? Is the book and the printed matter still the main format for the production of Moroccan thought?

These are some of the questions that remain under-developed in the book’s introduction. On the one hand, the author has provided a rich survey of the field, in terms of the scholars and the books that inform the conversation. Its footnotes alone constitute a treasure for any researcher that will long remain the reference and starting point for any researcher in this discipline.

On the other hand, I am left with pressing questions, including the impact of the digital sphere on the book and the publishing industry. The two are intimately connected. Increasingly, younger Moroccans search their intellectual heritage not in the physical libraries but social media and the digital sphere.[5] We must urgently turn our attention toward the new one, gestating here in Rabat and the Book Fair. It will be the one taking contemporary Moroccan thought forward.


Notes

[1] A mention should be made to De la culture marocaine moderne: Anthologie (1917-2004) edited and translated by Jalal el Hakmaoui and Abdeljalil Nadem (Casablanca: En Toutes Lettres, 2022).

[2] The inspiration for the “Rabat School” label comes from philosopher Abderrahman Taha, though Hashas notes his use is “more inclusive of various intellectual projects” (82).

[3] Roundtable: “al-falsafa: tafkik/tarkib. ’i‘adat qira’at ‘abd-al-kabir al-khatibi.” [Philosophy: Deconstruction / Reconstruction – Rereading Abdelkebir Khatibi], Book Fair, Rabat (20.04.2025).

[4] Ahmad, Hussam. The Last Nahdawi: Taha Hussein and Institution Building in Egypt (Stanford UP, 2021).

[5] Idriss Jebari, “The Great Return: Abdallah Laroui and the Historian in Morocco’s Recent Past,” Jadaliyya (17.11. and 19.1.2020).


About the Author

Idriss Jebari is a Lecturer in Middle East Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He is a historian of Arab thought and his research focuses on North African cultural and social history after its independence from France, on the Arab Left during the radical sixties and seventies, on collective memory in the Arab world, and Mediterranean history. His first monograph is titled Leaping Decolonization: North Africa in the Global Sixties and Seventies (Cambridge University Press, 2025).


Citation: Idriss Jebari, “Is there a Moroccan Thought?”, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 14.10.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/61884


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (October 14, 2025). “Is there a Moroccan Thought?”. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved November 11, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/14y0a


Forum Transregionale Studien

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien promotes the internationalization of research in the humanities and social sciences. It provides scope for collaboration among researchers with different regional and disciplinary perspectives and appoints researchers from all over the world as Fellows. More...

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