Mudhakkarat Shahid lil-Qarn
- Author died
- 1393 AH
- Editions
- Dar Al-Fikr
Mudhakkarat Shahid lil-Qarn (Memoirs of a Witness of the Century) is an autobiographical and intellectual memoir by the Algerian thinker Malik bin Nabi (1323–1393 AH / 1905–1973 CE), chronicling his early life, education, and the sociopolitical conditions of colonial Algeria and the broader Islamic world .
Composition and Structure
The book was originally composed in French and published in Algeria in 1966 . It is structured into two main parts corresponding to consecutive phases of the author's life:
- Part I: al-Tifl (The Child, 1905–1930): Covers the author's childhood, early upbringing, and social environment in Algeria up until his departure for France .
- Part II: al-Talib (The Student, 1930–1939): Details his period of higher education in Paris starting from 1930, recounting his experiences and intellectual formation as a student in the French capital .
Translation and Publication History
Bin Nabi initially entrusted a typed French manuscript to his student Umar Misqawi with the aim of issuing an Arabic translation, leading to a collaboration with Dr. Abd al-Majid al-Na'na'i, director of the Lebanese University branches in Tripoli, Lebanon . Before their version was completed, an Arabic translation of the first part by Marwan Qanawati was published in 1969 . When the second part appeared in the early 1970s (first Arabic edition in 1970), Bin Nabi translated it into Arabic himself to convey directly the nuances of his thought .
In 1971, Bin Nabi registered a formal will at the Sharia court in Tripoli, Lebanon, appointing Umar Misqawi as the trustee responsible for the publication and rights of his works . Under the auspices of the Malik bin Nabi Seminar (Nadwat Malik bin Nabi), both parts were revised and published together in a single volume by Dar al-Fikr in Damascus and Dar al-Fikr al-Mu'asir in Beirut, with the text of the first part harmonized based on the French original and the translations of al-Na'na'i and Qanawati .
Themes and Scope
Rather than serving purely as personal recollection, the work is conceived as an intellectual testimony documenting the intersection of Islamic society with modern Western civilization under colonial rule . Bin Nabi uses personal episodes to illustrate broader civilizational questions, examining the moral integrity of traditional society, the cultural rupture experienced by Western-educated elites, the reform initiatives led by figures such as Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis, and the internal vulnerabilities within colonized societies that he termed "colonizability" .
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