Abdallah Laroui and Western Culture: Marx and Montesquieu as Pathways to Overcoming Historical Delay

Abstract

This study examines how Abdallah Laroui conceptualizes historical delay and outlines the roles of objective Marxism, historicism, and translation within his conception of Arab modernity. It is based on a close reading of Larouiʼs major works – particularly Contemporary Arab Ideology, The Concept of Ideology, and translational prefaces – while tracing his engagement with Karl Marx, Montesquieu, and Ibn Khaldun through a comparative analytical approach combining textual analysis, conceptual reconstruction, and intellectual history. It argues that Laroui does not treat modernity as a cultural choice but as a historical reality whose internal logic must be understood and assimilated. Accordingly, overcoming historical delay requires first acknowledging its existence, then adopting a historicist perspective, appropriating objective Marxism as the distilled outcome of modern Western thought, and redefining translation as a fundamental instrument for modernizing Arab reason. The article concludes that Larouiʼs project transforms history into a practical horizon for learning, borrowing, and critical appropriation, while redefining the intellectual as a mediator between thought and reality. Within this framework, the critique of inherited tradition and the informed assimilation of the European historical experience emerge as complementary conditions for overcoming historical delay and enabling civilizational renewal.