The Book: Battles for Humanism

242 pages

• Traditionalist imams are ignorant of modernity
• Arkoun reads the Qur’an
• The crisis of modern reason and the concern with happiness
• The precedence of the religious sciences
• An anthropological horizon for prophetic discourse
• The importance of Al-Hawamil wa-l-Shawamil
• Educational reform confronts violence
• Reconfiguring the Islamic context
• The possibility of other religious humanisms
• A humanism that does not discriminate or marginalize
• Neglecting critical ijtihad is a religious danger
• Reducing Islam generates misunderstanding
• Choosing the Hanafi method is an epistemic choice
• The flourishing of Arabic humanism
• The duality of universality and particularity
• Using the concept of the Islamic context
• Classical literature goes beyond linguistic aesthetics
• Monotheistic religions possess similar structures
• Legal principles entrench tradition
• Religious anthropology relies on comparative history
• Anthropology reveals the diversity of rationalities
• Living humanism is committed to human concerns
• Religious humanism and philosophical humanism
• Formal humanism is detached from reality
• Human-centered humanism
• God-centered humanism
• Humanism is manifested in lived experience
• Humanism is a general practical aspiration
• Humanism in Arkoun is not an abstract slogan
• Humanism is a historical and intellectual issue
• Humanism is a historical value tied to Islamic thought
• Humanism is not confined to the European model
• Humanism is a critical and educational project
• Human creativity arises from the interaction of traditions
• Islam is a factor that stimulates exchanges
• The media deepens imaginaries of exclusion
• For Miskawayh, the human being is a psychophysical composite capable of education
• Religious humanism and secular humanism
• Arabic humanism emerged in an urban setting
• Theoretical humanism raises a problem
• Exclusion between the West and Muslims is mutual
• Classical Orientalism versus modern epistemology
• Temperamental moderation is a condition of health
• Recognition of plurality is a condition of democracy
• Forced integration reproduces exclusion
• The common structure among monotheistic religions
• A deconstructive interpretation of religions
• Actual history and real history
• History reveals a human face and a dark face
• Acculturation generates cultural tension
• Cultural interpenetration alters conflictual relations
• Cultural interpenetration is a new humanist philosophy
• The Islamic tradition needs critical study
• Tradition continues through transformation
• Education shapes the human being
• Pluralism is not the same as democracy
• Closed education feeds fanaticism
• Critical deconstruction precedes modern construction
• Distinguishing the religious from the worldly
• European Enlightenment and the social condition
• The tension between reason and sharia is a shared issue in medieval thought
• The tension between reason and sharia is a shared issue
• Al-Tawhidi remained within an elite horizon
• Al-Tawhidi between mysticism and pleasure
• Al-Tawhidi as a witness to deprivation and alienation
• Al-Tawhidi is not a pure Sufi
• Al-Tawhidi is charged with bitterness and envy
• Al-Tawhidi is an embittered humanist thinker
• Al-Tawhidi critiques elite humanism
• Al-Tawhidi is a critic of truth and spirit
• Al-Tawhidi and Miskawayh are two complementary models
• Al-Tawhidi, Miskawayh, and Ibn Sina
• Al-Tawhidi and Miskawayh represent distinct humanist responses to the crisis
• Al-Tawhidi adds an aesthetic dimension to thought
• Al-Tawhidi expresses a personal social and cultural impasse
• Al-Tawhidi generalizes his personal experience
• Al-Tawhidi can be read through the sociology of failure
• Culture suppresses instincts
• Jihad in modern history
• Love and death break out of the enclosure
• European modernity is a historical rupture
• Technological modernity gives rise to ideological patches
• Radical modernity calls for critique
• Modernity and humanism
• Modernity arrived in a distorted form
• Freedom is a condition for contemporary societies
• Dialogue and debate are the foundation of humanism
• Conformist discourses justify exclusion
• Panegyric discourses
• Religion is a general anthropological phenomenon
• Religion needs three dimensions
• Religion is used politically and clerically
• Happiness is the axis of classical thought
• Happiness and salvation transcend the Islamic tradition
• Happiness and salvation are central concepts
• The rational enclosure binds reason to language
• The conceptual networks of texts
• The struggle between good and violence governs history
• Inquisitive reason as an alternative to postmodernism
• Scientific reason has dominated in a reductionist way
• Reason mediates between science and religion
• Reason is a means of seeking religious truth
• Reason serves to establish the true religion
• Dogmatic rationalism in al-‘Amiri
• Centralist rationality privileges identity
• Doctrine within a closed enclosure
• Greek science and humanism
• Religious knowledge is the basis of the other sciences
• Racism intertwines with religion and inequalities
• Racism touches the deep human structure
• The critical purpose unravels camouflage
• The Greco-Semitic sphere is not enough
• Philosophy links experience to analysis and refines the human being
• Philosophy regulates the religious sciences
• Philosophy resists sacralization
• Philosophy and the search for legitimacy
• Religious understanding changes across generations
• Modern civil law has Roman origins
• Traditional reading imposes the exemplar
• Literal reading is a theological stance
• Emotional reading competes with logic
• Fragmentary reading operates by judgment
• Fragmentary reading generalizes the verse to other events
• Fragmentary reading detaches the verse from its context
• Reading without epistemological distance
• Reading is determined by purpose
• The fourth Hijri century was rich in thinkers
• The fourth Hijri century was an intellectual space broader than the four greats
• The fourth century and the nineteenth century
• The modern rupture weakened philosophical thought
• The break with ijtihad is a central cause
• The book is a compilation of Arab-Islamic culture
• Writing performs a preparatory and executive function
• Language is a tool of reform and influence
• Prophetic logos confronts pedagogical discourse
• Contemporary Islamic societies are cut off from European modernity
• Contemporary Islamic societies are cut off from their tradition
• Argumentation should be understood rhetorically and logically within the Islamic context
• French equality as universal rights
• The selective lexicon in the book
• Intuitive knowledge is a legitimate kind
• Rationality shapes real history
• Implicit meaning reveals mental structures
• Normativity in medieval texts
• Religious comparison within a pre-set frame
• Comparison reveals the relativity of cultures
• Civilizational achievement is proof of superiority
• Logic as an instrument of discrimination
• The middle position on predestination
• Islamic humanism arose from culturally generative tension
• The soul and the body in a reciprocal relation
• Self-criticism is a condition for confronting modernity
• Self-criticism accompanies European progress
• Al-Hawamil wa-l-Shawamil is a long dialogical text
• Revelation is a subject for historical study
• Criticism of the traditional imams
• The authorship of Al-Hawamil wa-l-Shawamil is not certain
• The historicity of the Qur’an has not yet been uncovered by Muslims
• For al-‘Amiri, reason is subordinate to religion
• Avoiding sectarian dispute
• Teaching Arab civilization apart from Islam
• Teaching the history of religions is necessary
• The decline of happiness after the thirteenth century
• The decline of humanism through political factors
• The decline of humanism
• The decline in women’s status reopens the question
• Alphabetical arrangement of roots
• The book is arranged by juxtaposition
• The composition of Al-Hawamil wa-l-Shawamil is most likely between 367 and 370 AH
• The dual composition of the human being
• Equality of rights between femininity and masculinity
• The plurality of currents within the Islamic context
• Religious instruction should be replaced by religious anthropology
• Teaching religion needs humanistic methods
• Qur’anic exegesis needs historical study
• Deconstructing Islamic discourse is necessary
• Deconstructing the closed theological enclosure
• Deconstructing hegemonic thought
• The superiority of Islam through axioms
• Distinguishing knowledge from legitimate practice
• Distinguishing rhetorical and logical argumentation
• Revitalizing humanism in Islamic contexts
• Soothing human contradictions
• The tension between the prophet and the philosopher
• Using religion politically and ideologically
• The four currents of the Islamic context
• Limiting attention to the four greats obscures the wider field
• Confined to the private, religion’s dimensions are reduced
• Confined to the private, religion’s public presence is weakened
• The choice of religious-political reason
• The study of Islam needs scholarly equality
• The role of the Mu’tazila in the humanist perspective
• Linking experience to theorizing
• The spirituality of sincere believers
• The context of composing the book Al-I’lam
• Al-Tawhidi’s personality is founded on contradiction
• Legitimizing domination in ideologies
• The weakness of Arab creative vitality
• The Enlightenment mind reduces religion
• A sociology of hope is needed