Formulation of the Claim
Arkoun argues that the liberation of Arab-Islamic religious thought can only be achieved through a history
Explanation
The book presents a project that makes Arkoun’s critical method renews the reading of tradition through historical study and the modern sciences the basis for rethinking religion and tradition outside inherited certainties. Through comparative history of religions breaks essentialism and sectarian memory and philology of the sacred text reveals the layers of compilation and the limits of certainty, the sacred text and religious history are transformed into a field of comparative scientific inquiry. Arkoun balances the recovery of human rationality flourished in the tradition but remained conditional on openness with a critique of theological and juristic closure weakened critical reason in Islam in light of European modernity reveals a gap in the reception of reason in the Arab-Islamic context. For this reason, his thesis extends to the Mediterranean space, the other, politics, education, and ethics through the Mediterranean as a shared field that reveals conflict, mediation, and the historical gulf and recognizing the other requires critical dialogue, not theological veneration and the politicization of religion and identity produces fundamentalism and distorts the public sphere and liberating thought and confronting extremism require epistemic and educational reform and ethics, language, and the critique of metaphysics redefine religious reason, while Arkoun’s experience and the contexts of publishing and colonialism explain the position of his critical project makes clear that this project is the product of a specific historical and epistemic experience.