The Idea
Arkoun attributes the decline of ijtihad to a collusion between religious scholars and political authority, whereby ready-made discourse was favored over free thinking. In this view, intellectual rigidity is not the result of religion alone, but the outcome of an interest-based relationship that constrained questioning and weakened the capacity for renewal. Thus, the decline of ijtihad is linked to the rise of dogma and the narrowing of the field of knowledge.
Concise Formulation
The erosion of ijtihad and the privileging of dogma: both were linked to the collusion of religious scholars with political authority
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This claim serves the book’s argument because it explains how knowledge shifted from an open field of inquiry to an instrument closer to control and consolidation. When the religious institution draws close to political power, ijtihad recedes and the presence of prepackaged answers increases. For that reason, the claim occupies an important explanatory position in clarifying the causes of intellectual closure within Islamic history as presented by the book.
Why It Matters
Its importance lies in the fact that it changes the angle from which the crisis is interpreted: the problem is not merely the absence of capacity, but the conditions that disabled it. This shows that Arkoun links thought to the social and political structure surrounding it. The claim therefore helps us understand his critique as a critique of the mechanisms that produce rigidity, not of the content of faith itself.
Brief Evidence
Arkoun attributes the decline of ijtihad to collusion between religious scholars and political authority, whereby ready-made discourse was favored over free thinking. According to this view, intellectual rigidity is not the result of religion alone, but the outcome of an interest-based relationship that constrained questioning and weakened renewal. Thus, the decline of ijtihad is linked to the rise of dogma and the narrowing of the field of knowledge.
Reading Questions
- How does the alliance between authority and the religious institution affect the fate of ijtihad?
- Is intellectual rigidity the result of ideas alone, or of the conditions that protect them?
Documentation Level
High: the claim appears in a clear location in the book’s material.