Sciences and religions in the late modern period

In his book Our Cultural Heritage and Us, Al Jabri advocates revisiting the “Arab-Muslim heritage” highlighting methodological issues. He sets more store by the philosophical heritage than by that of jurisprudence, which earned him some criticism. In terms of methodology, he proposes to distinguish between two phases in the approach to the past: a) disjunction, which should make it possible to read the “heritage” in the specific context in which it first appeared then got fixed. b) junction which should make the reading of that tradition a contemporary act so that what is read can be applied to the reader's concerns towards enriching and reconstructing them.

Convinced that reforming the present depends on understanding the past, he suggests reading the Quran as independent from human creation or any socio-cultural environment. He published in 2006 an Introduction to the Holy Quran, which he followed up with Understanding the Holy Quran: A clear Exegesis According to the Sequence of Revelation in three tomes. In the introduction of the former, the author explains that what happened on September 11 2001 as well as what followed eluded reason whether in Arab-Muslim or European thought. This observation inspired him to write his opus magnum around the “Holy Quran”, the founding text of the Arab-Muslim civilization. This text, he explains, binds everything religious and universal, but it should not blind us to the political and historical logic at work in the context it grew from. For this reason it seems very important to return to the chronological order of reception of the suras. The main thrust of Mohammed Al Jabri thus does not lie with the study of the essence of the Quranic text or its philosophy of the universe or of human existence but with an exercise in stripping off all that has been added to it over the centuries. It aims to clarify the mechanism of interpretation of the Quran through the exploration of its margins dotted with countless explanatory or elucidating notes, thereby proposing to distinguish between the “text” and the “notes”. Those are not to be neglected but reset in their time, in order to help getting at the text in its enduring essence.