It was primarily thanks to his disciples such as Rachid...

It was primarily thanks to his disciples such as Rachid Ghannouchi and other North African thinkers that mainstream Islamic movements gradually, though sometimes reluctantly, relinquished old positions on this matter. Malik Bennabi, who according to Ghannouchi, 'undoubtedly represents an element of the Islamic culture of rationalism and particularly a revival of Ibn Khaldun's historical culture of rationalism', had a profound influence on the Tunisian Islamic group.

The two men's first encounter came when, on his way back from Paris to Tunis, Ghannouchi traveled by land through Spain, Morocco and Algeria where he visited Bennabi before entering Tunisia.

He had read his books in Damascus when he, as he put it, returned to Islam.[^67] Having read Sayyid Qutb during his student years in Syria and France, and having been greatly influenced by his thoughts during that initial period of self- searching, he listened attentively to Bennabi as he strongly criticized Qutb.

The latter had actually referred to Bennabi in one of his writings without mentioning his name: 'An Algerian writer who writes on Islam believes that Islam is one thing and civilization is another.' Bennabi was seemingly offended by Qutb's remark that he believed was demeaning. After listening to the critique, Ghannouchi concluded that Bennabi had deeper knowledge and a better understanding of civilization than Qutb.

Bennabi believed that 'whereas civilization is the transformation of any good idea into a reality, Islam is a set of guidelines, a way of life, or a project, that creates a civilization only when put into practice; when its adherents carry it and move through the world positively influencing man, material and time.

Therefore, a Muslim may be uncivilized just as a non-Muslim may be civilized.'[^68] On the other hand, Qutb insisted that civility is a synonym of Islam; that a Muslim is civilized and a non-Muslim is not.

'This belief', Ghannouchi comments, 'would inevitably lead to Takfir' (that is charging someone with unbelief), and goes on to say, 'Qutb seemed to have borrowed the belief of the Al-Khawarij that a person is not a Muslim unless he or she is sinless and applied it to the question of civility; that is a person is not a Muslim unless he is perfectly civilized, and therefore all those backward Muslims are infidels!'[^69] Previous…