Arkoun as a Case Study

Shadi Ali

Abstract

The author presents Arkoun’s intellectual project and its overall features, his view on the Quran as a text, discourse, and revelation, and his general vision of Islam. Further, he details the weakness of Arkoun’s project, namely adopting empirical reason as the only source to understand existence and modern human studies in understanding religion. The author observes that Arkoun fell into the fallacy of circularity and succession in logic while interpreting the historicity of the Quran text. Moreover, by adopting the deconstructive approaches in an attempt to deny the sacredness of the Quran text, he fell into the trap of sophism. This arises, in the author’s view, from Arkoun’s reliance on Oriental sources in understanding religion, instead of relying on authentic Islamic sources to truly understand Islam.

Thus, the author criticizes Arkoun’s submission to Western enlightenment and cultural colonialism under the pretext of modernity, accusing him of being captivated by Western culture and having a state of psychological alienation from his own civilization.