Malek Bennabi’s Islamic Rooting of the Terminology of Social Sciences: "Social Relations Network” as a Model

Abstract

This study examines Malek Bennabi’s Islamic rooting of the terminology of social sciences through the analysis of one of the basic terms that he selected and instrumentalized from sociology; namely, “social relations network.” Bennabi’s instrumentalization of the term shows that his approach to rooting has two levels. The first is to reformulate the term and integrate it into the concepts that make up its theoretical system; which are: the three stages of the civilizational cycle, the three worlds, and the civilizational role of the religious idea. The second level is basing his selection of those terms on the following principal intellectual premises: the Noble Qur’an, the Prophet’s Sunnah, and the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his Companions (may Allah be pleased with them). These intellectual premises are totalities through which Bennabi understood the phenomena related to the problems of civilization. The terminology of social sciences that agrees with his intellectual premises helps him delve into the particulars of the phenomena under study.