Islam and Rationality
Academic and cultural illiteracy: causes and results
The human-building process constitutes the true beginning of every creative building process, and it is what any comprehensive development aspires to. Human capital is what...
When fatwās turn on science – 2
Epidemics have ceased to plague the Islamic world thanks to Western science and colonial medicine, and this is another fact that we are hesitant to...
When fatwās turn on science – 1
The act of takfīr (‘declaring someone a non-believer' ) represents one aspect of how the religious cleric oversteps the limitations of a religious fatwā and...
Mohammed Arkoun on the Golden Age and Beyond – 2
This is the general outline of Arab thought in all its successive phases. Let us now get into some details. Arkoun sees that Arab intellectuals,...
Mohammed Arkoun on the Golden Age and Beyond – 1
I would like first of all to pose this question: how does Muhammad Arkoun view Arab Islamic thought? What is the general picture he paints...
Islam in History
Glorification tendencies in the teaching of Islamic history
Studying history, as we have mentioned elsewhere, through the stages of public education for young people has a great impact on shaping their minds. This...
Separating the Islam of Faith from the Islam of History – 2
How can the Islam of History attain the goal of standing with its head held high alongside Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism? 3) By studying...
Separating the Islam of Faith from the Islam of History – 1
In all the major religions two religions live together peaceably: the Religion of Faith and the Religion of History. With the exception, that is, of...
Redefining Islam in Comparative Religion – 2
These facts about the history of religions help schools pupils and students understand the historical formation of religious phenomena. It blocks the road to blind...
Redefining Islam in Comparative Religion – 1
Almost every religion is inhabited by fanaticism, which is the lawful offspring of a religious narcissism promulgated via slogans of greatness. People like us are...
Salafist Discourse
Tribal culture and intellectual rickets
We appear to take a doctrinal stance towards science and scientists, considering science some form of contrary belief, as if it were another religion in...
The Nahda equation – between the past and the present
Those who call for the return to the text via a return to the legacy of Arabic rhetoric in its “golden age” accuse the proponents...
The mechanisms of religious discourse according to Abu Zayd
The Egyptian thinker Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd argued that the mechanisms which govern the large part of religious discourse are the same, whether they manifest...
The 15 Characteristics of Salafist Discourse
The term ‘Salafism’ is one of the more widely employed concepts in two arenas: the media and religion. Linguistically the term ‘Salaf’ refers to what...
Abū Zayd on the intellectual premises of religious discourse
There are some who claim that there is a difference between the extremist and moderate religious currents, while there is in fact no difference separating...
Ethical Issues
Compassion in light of the doctrine of Al-Walā’ wal-Barā’
The concept of charity and unconditional good deeds is inconsistent with the concept of charity and good deeds in the light of what is referred...
Towards the criminalisation of Takfīr – 2
Extremist movements have become the military arm of the takfīr institutions, and they even pressure these institutions to grant them fatwās against their enemies. In...
Towards the criminalisation of Takfīr – 1
In recent decades fatwās of takfīr (declaring others to be ‘infidels’) have proliferated, going beyond any reasonable limits and threatening both individuals and groups. Official...
Letters from London: Al-Turabi and western civilisation – 2
In the first part of this article, I referred to the position of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, Hasan al-Turabi, towards Western...
Letters from London: Al-Turabi and western civilisation – 1
In the eighties of the last century, the late Sudanese politician and diplomat ‘Alī Abū ‘Āqila Abūsan wrote a pamphlet entitled “Al-Turābī’s Letters and the...
Islamism
Problems in the ‘Arab Renaissance’ – 3
Progress for Arabs and Muslims is a negative concept, as the movement of history is constantly one of going from bad to worse. This fact...
Religious extremism – between fantasy and heresy – 2
If we turn now to the intellectual manifestations of fanaticism and extremism, one should note that a fanatic will only become an extremist, or risk...
Islamism as a Khwāja Complex
The Islamist current calls continually and in all circumstances for us not to fall victim to dazzlement at western culture, and not to imprison ourselves...
Religious extremism – between fantasy and heresy – 1
Human and intellectual development is based on intellectual awareness and openness to the other, whether this other be a people, an individual, or a culture....
Problems in the ‘Arab Renaissance’ – 2
The Arab sensitivity towards Western thought's focus on the ‘history of the West’ has led to a populist conception on a ‘West-centric bias’, and the...
Religious Reform
A backward Islam – Part 2
Some of these turbans are spreading ignorance and are responsible for the deceived youth’s blood that is going to waste in horrible terrorist attacks or...
A backward Islam – Part 1
Ask those shaykhs who issue fatwās in the name of religion, those clowns who have appointed themselves leaders of Islam, or those simple-minded people who...
Modernization in the Thought of Rifāʽa al-Tahtāwī – 2
It should be noted carefully that al-Ṭahṭāwī’s thoughts on progress in its various aspects resulted not merely from intellectual considerations and a deep reading into...
Modernization in the Thought of Rifāʽa al-Tahtāwī – 1
Rifāʽa al-Ṭahṭāwī is the founder of the modern intellectual nahḍa (‘resurgence’, ‘renaissance’) at the beginning of the 19th century, the inspiration for which he drew...
Is religious reform possible?
What is meant by religious reform, presented as it is as a way to salvation? Is it intended to open up horizons so as to...
The Doctrinal Dimension
Keeping factionalism away from the Qur’ān
The Companions of the Prophet and the early Tābiʽūn used to read the texts of the Qur’ān according to what they thought God Almighty meant...
Islamic law and the circumstance of time and place
The shaykhs of Islam - Salafis, Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, preachers, and most of the Muslim community - think, or even believe, that Islam is...
The ethical damage from Madīnan Islam
When attempting to understand the phenomenon of terrorism, the important thing is not merely to understand the forms in which it manifests itself – but...
When will Muhammad’s nation free itself from its sacralised myths?
Our Islamic Arab nation possesses a number of myths which occupy a position of sanctity – myths such as the beard, the niqāb and the...
The concept of a ‘religious police’
No one disagrees about the talk of the domination of the Islamist phenomenon, and its hegemony over the political scene in all the various Arab...
The Scriptural Dimension
The Qur’ānic text – Hypothesis 2
The second hypothesis focuses on the inexplicability of the Qur’an. The legitimacy of religious authority rests on the claim that it is capable of interpreting...
Is the Qur’ān an expression of Muhammad’s inner thoughts?
By studying the Qur’ānic text using discourse analysis, it becomes transparent that the Qur’ānic text is related to historical events that took place at a...
The Qur’ānic text – Hypothesis 1 (Part 2)
Turning now to the level of content, the second question is: does the Qur’ān include all of the verses that were revealed to the Messenger?...
The Qur’ānic text – Hypothesis 1 (Part 1)
There are some preliminary questions that we encounter here, so we must decide on them putting to one side the ideological, political, or authoritarian employment...
Warfare in the Qur’ān
The Qur’ānic text does not stint at calling for killing and fighting. Indeed in one of its verses (Qur’ān, II, 216) it states: ‘Warfare is...