Formulation of the Claim
The new authority takes the prophetic model as an example that it reclaims and imitates in building its legitimacy.
Explanation
For Arkoun, this mimicry is not understood as innocent continuity, but as a way of invoking the original reference in order to confer legitimacy on the new form of authority. The prophetic model thus becomes a standard to be emulated, not a historical experience to be understood in its context.
This means that authority does not merely symbolically affiliate itself with the origin; it works to embody its image in discourse, appearance, and the function of rule. In this form, mimicry becomes a tool for consolidating both political and religious presence.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom belongs within Arkoun’s diagnosis of how authority was formed in historical Islam when it returned to the prophetic example to found itself, rather than opening itself to a critical historical reading of the divide between revelation and political governance. It comes close to his theses on the interplay between the religious and the political, and on the use of the founding example in constructing legitimacy.
Limits of the Claim
This atom should not be burdened with a sweeping judgment on all forms of authority, nor reduced to mere formal imitation; rather, it describes a specific mechanism of legitimacy as Arkoun presents it in a particular historical context.