Acknowledgements
After some years of embryonic development since 2011, the idea for this volume was first communicated to three senior friend-professors in 2016, all of whom encouraged it: professors Khalid Hajji (Oujda-Brussels), Mustapha El Mourabit (Rabat), and Abdou-Filali Ansari (Rabat-London). The project started without funding in February 2019. After nearly a year, it won its first major support through a Visiting Research Fellowship for five months from Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin (November 2020–March 2021); I am here especially grateful to Dr Sonja Hegasy of ZMO, for her strong endorsement of the idea, and insightful comments regarding it; I cannot thank her enough for the major stimulus she gave to the project. I am at the same time not surprised by her passionate support; she is a scholar of Moroccan intellectual history and has written much on this topic in German and English, and she knows well the scarcity of material on the research area contributed to here. I also thank Professors Ulrike Freitag, Kai Kresse, and Abdoulaye Sounaye, all of ZMO, for having welcomed me as a visiting scholar, as well as an affiliate researcher for three years so far since then (March 2021–present); I have learnt much from my participation in the seminars of the various research units at ZMO; I am also thankful to all the colleagues at the Centre for their comments on my presentations related to Moroccan and Arab-Islamic thought, in April 2020, May 2022, and July 2023.
I am equally grateful to a second important Non-Residential Research Fellowship for six months (July-December 2021) received from the Center for Islam in the Contemporary World (CICW) at Shenandoah University in Virginia in the United States. I wish to sincerely thank its executive director Dr Ermin Sinanovic for the encouragement he showed towards the project and the facilities he made available. I also warmly thank Professor Abdulaziz Sachedina for the link he forged between me and the CICW. During a later visit to the Center, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Yaqub Mirza, CICW trustee and president, who valued the input the project would contribute and likewise encouraged it. This fellowship came at the right time, during a transitory period of shifting the location of my work in Italy, and it balanced well my engagements and time for researching this collective project.
As to the logistics that such a large volume requires, some funds were needed to cover the translation costs and copy-editing of some chapters originally written in Arabic and French by a professional copyeditor, besides my own editorial work. Three contributions facilitated the task, and I stand very grateful to them as well; they were also received after the project started. First is the German Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Rabat, which covered the costs of some translations from Arabic. I warmly thank Mr Steffen Krüger, the then-representative of the Stiftung in Morocco (mid-2020), for his endorsement and constant inquiry into the progress of the work. Then there is the important contribution of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation (HAF). I am grateful to Dr Hicham Alaoui, first, for his personal encouragements of the project and, second, for his foundation’s concrete contribution in covering most of the remaining translation and copy-editing costs. I also thank Dr Sean Yom for his role in facilitating the bureaucratic exchange with the foundation. Finally, there is the contribution of the French Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat, which covered a trip to specialized libraries in Rabat to purchase several references that I required. I extend its current director, Dr Anouk Cohen, my warm thanks.
For library services, I am grateful to FSCIRE-La Pira Library for the History of Islamic Sciences in Palermo, Italy, for having acquired an important list of works in Arabic on Arab and Moroccan thought, which I made use of during my Senior Research Fellowship (2019–2021). Similar gratitude goes to Luiss University Library in Rome for having made available some works in English and French. I cannot forget here the service that René-Vincent Guérin du Grandlaunay, O.P., director of the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies in Cairo (2021), also supplied in this regard; he generously sent me two texts that I needed. Fouad Bentayeb, a manager in al-Alfia Library in Rabat, was also helpful, and ensured that the books I required were reserved for me until they could be shipped.
A few other friends and colleagues sent me texts I needed, which they either emailed or purchased for me: Merouan Mekouar, Khalid Lyamlahy, Brahim Bourchachen, Khalid Ben-Srhir, Said Bennis, Youssef ben Addi, Brahim Mjidila, El-Sayed El-Aswad, Nour-eddine Labiad, Mountassir Hamada, Ghassan El Kechouri, Driss Makboul, Mukhtar Baqa, Badran Garni, Jamila Tilout, Redouane Marhoum, Abderrezak Belagrouz, Fahd Drissi, Simone Sibilio, Fernanda Fischione, and Idriss Boumehdi. I also thank some other colleagues and friends in different university institutions and locations for their encouragement of the idea for the project: Hassan Rachiq, Mohammed Noureddine Affaya, Abdallah Hammoudi, Abdessalam Benabdelali, Abdelilah Belkeziz, Abdelilah Ben Arafa, Malika al-Assimi, Yassine Adnane, Hassan Aourid, Abdellah Boussouf, Abdessamad El Jaouzi, Reda Benkirane, Anouar Majid, Khalid Amine, Saloua Zerhouni, Naima Hachad, Aomar Boum, Driss Maghraoui, Redouane Saidi, Jaouad Redouani, Abdellah El Boubekri, Mohammed Cherkaoui, Meriem El Haitami, Moulay Ahmed Saber, Thami al-Harrak, Merouane Mekouar, Mohsine El-Ahmadi, Rachid Jarmouni, Younes Loukili, Driss Jebbari, Nadia Guessous, Jamal Bahmad, Mohammed Houmam, Nour-eddine Lachhab, Mohammed Abdessalam Lachhab, Said Sadiqi, Ahmed al-Farrak, Abdelilah Bouasria, Driss Ksikes, Kenza Sefrioui, Fadma Ait Mous, M’hamed Bijitane, Sami Kegar, Saer El-Jaichi, Karima Laachir, Adnane Mokrani, Ezzedine Anaya, Rachid Muqtadir, Rachid El Hour, Tijani Boulaouali, Abdelaziz Belamrani, Suzanne Kassab, Sari Hanafi, Haider Saeed, Bshshar Haydar, Driss Bouyahya, Sarhan Douib, Ali Assalih Mawla, Michael Willis, Ida Zilio Grandi, Emily Gottreich, Asma Afsaruddin, Shabbir Akhtar, Sadek Hamid, Emin Poljarevic, Ines Peta, Anna Maria di Tolla, Ahmed Khanani, Joshua Sabih, Salmane Bounaamane, Mohamed Daadaoui, Daanish Faruqi, Mariangela Laviano, Fatima Gueddou, Abdou Haqqi, Jan Jaap de Ruiter, Kaoutar Ghilani, Moha Ennaji, Susan Gilson Miller, David Stenner, Cristián H. Ricci, Nabil Fazio, Said Bentajer, Adil Ettahiri, Azzedine Azimani, Mohammed Masbah, Rachid Aourraz, Mounir Birouk, and Merouane El Habchi.
At Luiss University of Rome, I am very thankful to Professor Francesca M. Corrao, Chair of Arabic Language and Culture in the Department of Political Science, for her unfailing trust and encouragement. Her belief in the Mediterranean and its scholarly traditions has been an important support in my work on modern and contemporary Arab and Islamic intellectual history. At Tor Vergata University of Rome, I am thankful to Professor Lucia Ceci, Director of the Department of History, Humanities and Society, for her dedication, on behalf of the Faculty Members, in not disrupting the study and teaching of the history of the Arab and Islamic worlds in the Department.
In addition, I presented my readings of contemporary Moroccan thought at various conferences and seminars over the last several years, and I am thankful to the comments I received from colleagues in attendance: “Religion and the State in Contemporary Moroccan Thought,” for “The Relationship between State and Religion in the Arab and Islamicate Contexts: Civil State, Secular State, Religious/Islamic State,” at Leipzig University, 9–10 December 2021; “For Change in the Arab World: Three Projects from Rabat School,” for “The Challenge of Social Change in Arab Countries,” Carthage Seminars and International Symposium, at the Tunisian Academy for the Sciences, Letters and Arts “Beit al-Hikma” in Carthage, Tunisia, 4–8 July 2022; “Contemporary Moroccan Thought: Revisiting the Arab Islamic Intellectual Tradition,” for Abu Suleyman Center for Global Islamic Studies, at George Mason University in Virginia, 25 October 2022; “Religion in Contemporary Moroccan Philosophic Thought,” for “Maroc: les enjeux du religieux dans une société en transition,” at the French Centre Jacques Berque (CJB) pour les études en sciences humaines et sociales, Rabat, 8–9 December 2022; “On Modern Muslim Personalism: Insights from Moroccan Scholarship,” for “Ethics and Contemporary Islam” Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, 25 January 2023; “Rabat School of Thought: An Introduction,” at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, 6 July 2023.
This work includes six papers originally written in Arabic for this volume, and one in French. I warmly thank all the translators for their efforts in rendering the original texts available in English: Meryem Akabouch, Soumia Benrochd, Maryam El Oraiby, and Mustapha Tajdin. Warm thanks go to Michael Baers who was very helpful with copyediting and smoothing the translations. And because I am familiar with the original works of the scholars and thinkers studied here, I was obliged to revisit the translations when need be and had to discuss these translations with the original authors to ensure precision. It was originally intended that this volume also include a section of primary sources (readings) written by the scholars and thinkers studied herein, but the volume reached a size beyond which it would have become either unpublishable in one volume or unfinishable in the near future; but that part of work must also be carried out, sooner or later, by myself or by other scholars. Scholarship requires continuity and collaboration. As for Brill’s copyediting of the volume, special thanks go to Harry S. Neale for his meticulous edits and for working closely with me to ensure the quality and consistency of the final version of the manuscript.
Last but not least, I am forever grateful to my family for being present and helpful in many ways: my parents, sisters, brother, and lately my wife and little daughter. I owe them a great deal, beyond what words can express. I especially wish to dedicate this volume to my elder brother, Hicham, who brought philosophy and Moroccan thought to our home library during my high school years; his presence and support of me, in addition to that of our parents, have been influential in my career, even as I was growing up, and I cannot thank him enough; this volume might have not seen light of day if it were not for the seeds [booklets] he brought home some 25 years ago, and for his generous support of the family during my absences.