For the devout muslim progressive, Malik Bennabi's work is of the utmost importance. In his book "The Question of Culture", he said that the organisation of society, its life and movement, indeed, its deterioration and stagnation, all have a functional relation with the system of ideas found in that society. This should set bells ringing for anyone who is familiar with the idea of memes. While Bennabi doesn't waste his time exploring the biology of mimetic units, his exposition on the power of ideas and the need for societies to constantly discard bad ideas and absorb good ones, while obvious to any Western reader, is revolutionary in the Islamic world. Bennabi exhorts muslim individuals vis a vis societies to explore and study new ideas, to absorb powerful ideas and discard those that are worthless or destructive. He explains that muslims should refrain from blindly aping the empty cultural detritus being propogated by "popular culture" and to rise above the backwardness of the shattered historical and intellectual legacies of their cultures. Bennabi's work is essential reading for any devout and fair-minded muslim looking for answers in this increasingly complicated world.