Jacques Berque

Jacques Augustin Berque (born 4 June 1910 in Frenda, Algeria, † June 27, 1995 in Saint -Julien -en -Born, Landes, France) was a French Islamic scholar and sociologist. His expertise was the decolonization of Algeria and Morocco in general and the Arab world.

Biography

Berque (now in the province of Tiaret ) born to French parents in Frenda in Algeria. He he was a Pied- noir, that is, A white European settlers in Algeria. His father, Augustin Berque was orientalist. Jacques Berque is a graduate of the University of Algiers and was awarded the 1930 Master of Arts degree. He joined the French army and worked from 1934 to 1944 as a civil servant in Morocco. As such, he worked as an agronomist and tried to improve the Moroccan agriculture and the lives of farmers. Later he became the administrator of the tribe Seksawa at Imi n'Tanout, Atlas Mountains. A five -year sojourn among them led to the book Les structures sociales du Haut Atlas (1955, simultaneously dissertation), which established his scientific reputation. It remains one of the most thorough ethnographies of the Berbers. He lived his last years in a region in southwest France, from which the Berque family. He died in Saint -Julien- en- Born.

Career

1947 Berque was a Middle East expert for UNESCO. In 1953 he was sent to Egypt, the return to Paris took place two years later. It was after the publication of his dissertation director for Muslim sociological studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes practique and a year later, in 1956, professor of the social history of contemporary Islam at the Collège de France; a post he held until his retirement in 1981 Later he headed the Ministry of Research ( 1981-1982 ) and the Ministry of Education. (1984 - 1985).

He was also the translator of the Koran.