Abdallah Laroui

Abdallah Laroui (Arabic: عبدالله العروي; born 7 November 1933) is a Moroccan philosopher, historian, and novelist. Besides some works in French, his philosophical project has been written mostly in Arabic. He is among the most read and discussed Arab and Moroccan philosophers.^[1][2]

Abdallah Laroui
Born	1933 Azemmour, Morocco
Academic background
Thesis	Les Origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain, 1830-1912 (1976)
Doctoral advisor	Henri Laoust

Biography

Laroui was born in 1933 in Azemmour. His mother died when he was two. He studied at the kuttab before entering the public primary school at seven, where he studied from 1941 to 1945. In 1945, he obtained a grant to study at the College Sidi Mohammed in Marrakesh, where he stayed five years. Afterwards he studied at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca from 1949 to 1951 and at Lycée Gouraud in Rabat from 1951 to 1953. He obtained his baccalauréat in 1953, and then studied history and economics, at the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris, where he studied under Charles Morazé [fr] and Raymond Aron. In 1958, he obtained a Diplôme d'études supérieures. After receiving his agrégation in Islamic studies in June 1963, he was appointed as an assistant professor of history at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. In 1976, he defended his Doctorat d'Etat with a thesis titled "Les Origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain, 1830–1912" (Social and Cultural Origins of Moroccan Nationalism, 1830–1912) and published it in 1977.^[3][4] Laroui taught at the University Mohammed V until 2000. He has written five novels (o.a. L'Exil (Sindbad-Actes Sud, 1998)).^[5]

Historian Albert Hourani describes him as a significant Arab thinker of the post-1967 era.^[6] Laroui's philosophy was guided by a Marxist reading of history and a commitment to radical critique of culture, language, and tradition.^[6][7]

Awards and honors

• In 2000, he was awarded the Premi Internacional Catalunya (Catalonia International Prize).^[8][9]
• In 2017, he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for "Cultural Personality of the Year",^[10][11] the premier category with a prize of 1 million dirhams.

Partial bibliography

• L'Idéologie arabe contemporaine: essai critique [Contemporary Arab ideology: a critical essay]. Paris: Maspero. 1967.
• L'Algérie et le Sahara marocain [Algeria and the Moroccan Sahara]. Casablanca: Serar. 1976.
• Laroui, Abdallah (1974). La crise des intellectuels arabes: Traditionalisme ou historicisme?. Paris: Maspéro.
  • The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism Or Historicism?. Translated by Cammell, Diarmid. University of California Press. 1976. ISBN 978-0-520-02971-2.
• Les origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain: 1830-1912 [The social and cultural origins of Moroccan nationalism, 1830–1912]. Paris: Maspéro. 1977.
• L'Histoire du Maghreb: un essai de synthèse. Paris: Maspero. 1970.
  • The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive Essay. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1977. ISBN 978-1-4008-6998-5.
• Islam et modernité [Islam and modernity]. Paris: La Découverte. 1987. ISBN 978-2-7071-1662-8.
• Islam et histoire. Paris: Albin Michel. 1999. ISBN 978-2-226-19903-4.
• Le Maroc et Hassan II: Un témoignage [Morocco and Hassan II: testimony]. Quebec: Les Presses Inter Universitaires. 2005. ISBN 978-2-89441-084-4.

See also

• Abdelwahab Benmansour

References

1. Jean Jacques Waardenburg, Islam: historical, social, and political perspectives, Walter de Gruyter, 2002, p.145-147
2. Youssef M. Choueiri, Arab history and the nation-state: a study in modern Arab historiography, Routledge, 1989, p.165
3. Gallagher, Nancy (2008). "Laroui, Abdallah (1933–)". In Fischbach, Michael R. (ed.). Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Vol. II. pp. 470–472. ISBN 9781414418919.
4. Gallagher, Nancy (1998). "Interview — the life and times of Abdallah Laroui, a Moroccan intellectual". The Journal of North African Studies. 3 (1): 132–151. doi:10.1080/13629389808718312. ISSN 1362-9387.
5. Salim Jay, Dictionnaire des écrivains marocains, Eddif, 2005, pp 243-244
6. Hourani, Albert. "A Disturbance of Spirits (since 1967." In A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991.
7. A. Laroui, La crise des intellectuels arabes (Paris, 1974), English trans. The crisis of the Arab intellectual (Berkeley, 1976); and L’idéologie arabe contemporaire, new edn (Paris, 1977).
8. "2000 Abdallah Laroui". Departament de la Presidència (in Catalan). Retrieved 2020-07-09.
9. "El historiador marroquí Abdallah Laroui gana el Premio Catalunya El estudioso confía en que el premio avive el interés por la historia de su país". El País (in Spanish). 2000-03-22. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2020-07-09.
10. "Sheikh Zayed Book Award Names Abdallah Laroui "Cultural Personality of the Year"". Sheikh Zayed Book Award website. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original on 9 April 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
11. "Laroui named Cultural Personality of the Year". Gulf News. 5 April 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2017.

External links

• "Western Orientalism and Liberal Islam: Mutual Distrust?". Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2011-01-31. . Lecture by Abdallah Laroui, Fulbright 50th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow, (Lecture delivered at the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in Providence, RI).