Jacques Berque
Jacques Augustin Berque (4 June 1910, Molière, Algeria – 27 June 1995) was a French scholar of Islam and sociologist of the Collège de France. His expertise was the decolonisation of Algeria and Morocco. Berque wrote several histories on the classical and medieval periods in the Arab world, as well as highly influential works on modern era colonisation and decolonisation. He had a countervailing influence on French historiography of the first half of the twentieth century, which tended to see Arabs and in particular the inhabitants of North Africa as a less advanced people or pawns of a victorious France; Berque emphasized instead the rich Arab cultural heritage at a time when historical opinion was sharply divided. As such he was viewed as a sympathetic observer of Muslim society, arguing that the role of Islam was key to any work on the Middle East and North Africa. Biography Born of French parents in Frenda (now in Tiaret Province) in French Algeria, he was a pied-noir. His father, Augustin Berque, was a scholar and Arabist of distinction, one of the few to take an interest in the Muslim culture of the Maghreb. Berque graduated from University of Algiers in 1929, and