Between Two Centuries: The Youth and Plurality of Arab-Muslim Civilization

Between two breaths, two eras gaze at one another. One rises from memory, the other reaches toward the sky. And in that silent face-to-face, a lone figure tries to grasp what time makes of us — and what we make of time.

“The past resembles the future more

than one drop of water resembles another.”

Ibn Khaldoun (1332–1406)

Sometimes, a number resonates like a vertigo. Fifteen centuries. One thousand five hundred years since the birth of a man whose words would reshape the destiny of the world. This number, both heavy and fragile, speaks not merely of the passage of time: it opens a breach between two calendars, two ways of inhabiting history. In the Gregorian West, we journey through the 21st century; in the Muslim world, we are in the 15th Hijri century. This gap intrigues, questions, sometimes disturbs.

Between the centuries, it is not time that flows: it is consciousness that expands.

Is this the mark of a delay? Or rather the sign of another temporality, of a memory that refuses to bend to the certainties of linear modernity?

This is not an abstract speculation. This questioning found an official echo on September 15, 2025, when His Majesty King Mohammed VI addressed a message to the Supreme Council of Ulama, asking them to reflect on the best way to mark the passage into the 15th century of the Hijra. Through this request, it was not merely about calendars, but truly a call to grasp the historical and universal significance of this anniversary, and to place it on the international stage.

It is important here to clarify a point often causing confusion. When we speak of "1,500 years," we do not refer to the age of the Hijri calendar, which currently counts 1,447 years since the Hijra (622 CE). It is the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, around the year 570 of the Christian era (known as the "Year of the Elephant"), which constitutes the reference point for this commemoration. We are thus celebrating 1,500 years since this foundational event, not the entry into the 15th Hijri century.

This celebration indeed raises a fundamental question: what does it mean to be in the 15th Hijri century today, while the West finds itself in the 21st Gregorian century? Should we interpret this chronological gap as a sign of delay, as a linear reading of history would suggest? Or, on the contrary, is there not a singular richness here, the possibility of a different gaze upon modernity, born precisely from this temporal and cultural tension?

Let us specify from the outset that it would be reductive to limit this reflection to the Arab-Muslim world alone. Islam, from its first centuries, transcended Arabness to fertilize multiple civilizations: Persian, Turkish, Indian, African, Asian. To speak of the Muslim world is therefore to embrace a plurality of heritages which, together, constitute the richness of this civilization. The subject being of such scope, it would be illusory to claim to exhaust it within the limited framework of a few paragraphs. This is why, by virtue of my belonging and my gaze, I choose here to focus on the Arab-Muslim civilization of North Africa, and more particularly on the Moroccan experience which is its living expression.

Here, then, is a modest and humble analysis of the paradoxical situation of the contemporary Arab-Muslim world: a civilization that conjugates historical youth with immediate access to the achievements of modernity, and which, from this dual belonging, draws a particular cognitive and symbolic richness.

I. The Wealth of Dual Cultural Belonging

“The man who knows only one culture lives in the shadows;

he who knows several sees the light from multiple angles.”

Al-Farabi (872–950)

The first observation concerns the very nature of the contemporary Arab-Muslim cultural experience. The Arab individual generally grows up within a dual matrix:

-   The first is that of their own civilization: language, poetry, music, religious and philosophical references.

-   The second is that of the modern West: through school, media, foreign languages, artistic and intellectual productions.

This dual exposure generates a form of cognitive plurality. Where the Western individual may sometimes evolve primarily within the framework of their own cultural matrix, the Arab individual is compelled, from childhood, to learn to read in two alphabets, to think according to two grammars, to navigate between two symbolic horizons. This intercultural lucidity constitutes a not insignificant comparative advantage.

II. Historical Youth as Promise

“Do not worry about what is still young;

all that begins with wisdom can become great.”

Jalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî (1207–1273)

The second observation pertains to temporality itself. Being in the 15th Hijri century does not signify a delay, but another rhythm of civilizational maturation. This historical youth, far from being a deficiency, can be interpreted as a reserve of potentialities.

Yet, this youth is experienced in an unprecedented context: that of direct access to the tools, knowledge, and technologies of the 21st century. Far from starting from scratch, Arab-Muslim civilization enters a new phase of its history already equipped with the most advanced instruments of global modernity. This is a fertile paradox: to begin a new era with science, technique, and globalized culture already available.

This dual belonging, however, is not without its challenges. Living between several cultural matrices can be a source of internal conflicts, social fragmentations, or identity tensions. The risk is real: that of never feeling entirely on one side or the other, of living in a form of a rift. But it is precisely from this tension that a new strength can be born: the ability to transform conflict into lucidity, and plurality into a creative engine.

The Hijra, in essence, has never ceased to be an inner movement—a migration of the spirit as much as of time.

It would be dishonest to deny that this in-between position carries its share of shadows. What the thinker Edward Said, whom we cite in reference, called "the pain of the cut" - this feeling of never being quite at home anywhere - is the price to pay for this intercultural lucidity. But it is perhaps in the acute awareness of this fracture that an authentic thought of synthesis is forged: not an identity comfort, but a perpetual work of inner translation.

III. A Discreet Cognitive Superiority

“The true wealth of the mind lies not in the accumulation of goods,

but in the ability to link what one knows to what one ignores.”

Avicenna / Ibn Sīnā (980–1037)

From this position stems a form of discreet cognitive superiority, often overlooked. It does not translate into economic indicators or geopolitical domination, but into cognitive and symbolic wealth. The contemporary Arab individual often masters several languages and systems of thought with a depth that allows for exceptional intercultural agility.

This transversality allows one to invoke Sartre and Nizar Qabbani, Mozart and Oum Kalthoum, Cubism and calligraphy.

This aptitude does not stem from simple accumulation, but from a more fundamental competence: the art of translation. Not only between languages, but between symbolic universes. The contemporary Arab-Muslim world functions as a vast permanent translation workshop - of codes, concepts, values. It is from this work of passage, inherited from the great translators of the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma), that this potential creativity is born. The "cognitive superiority" in question is first and foremost this ability to build bridges where others see borders.

This dynamic finds its concrete incarnations today. Take the example of Moroccan architect Aziza Chaouni, who works on rehabilitating the Fez medina by integrating advanced sustainable technologies while respecting traditional heritage. Or the philosopher and physician Abdennour Bidar, who articulates in his thought the Sufi tradition and European continental philosophy. These are not exceptions, but the vanguards of a broader phenomenon: the emergence of new Avicennas, capable of mastering several systems of knowledge and producing an original synthesis from them.

In conclusion...

“Civilizations that know how to unite memory

and innovation flourish; those that forget their past fade away.”

Ibn Khaldoun (1332–1406)

Thus, being in the 15th century while living with the tools of the 21st cannot be reduced to a sign of delay. It is, on the contrary, a singular configuration that opens onto a creative potential. The Arab-Muslim world, because it lives in a temporal and cultural in-between, possesses a particular lucidity: that of a civilization both rooted in its memory and open to contemporary universality.

However, we must recall that our history is not limited to the Arab-Muslim era alone. Long before the Hijra, Morocco and a large part of North Africa had already seen the flourishing of a plurimillennial Amazigh civilization, which shaped our languages, our imaginations, and our social structures. We are therefore not merely Arab-Muslims: we are African, Amazigh, Arab, and Muslim, and this plurality constitutes one of our greatest identity riches.

Indeed, today's Morocco fully assumes this diversity. The official recognition of the Amazigh language, and the fact that the Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Moulay El Hassan, masters it perfectly in its different dialects, are shining proofs. Our country thus embodies a fully assumed identity, both Amazigh and Arab-Muslim, rooted and open, which constitutes a solid foundation for confronting modernity and engaging in dialogue with the universal.

Finally, it should be specified that this is in no way an attempt to establish a general rule from this comparison. If one were to judge civilizations by the yardstick of their youth or antiquity, one would find on the world stage examples even more recent than the Muslim experience: modern Korea, for example, whose historical affirmation is relatively young, or the United States, which counts only a few centuries of existence. The aim is therefore not to reduce civilizational trajectories to a chronology, but rather to underline the singularity of the Muslim experience, situated at the intersection of a millennial memory and immediate access to modernity.

The future, therefore, might belong less to homogeneous civilizations than to plural civilizations, capable of holding together two horizons of meaning and producing, from this tension, a new form of universal thought.

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