The Idea
The text argues that the rise of Islamism was not isolated from broader social and educational transformations. The spread of mass education widened the circle of the educated, but it did not necessarily ensure critical formation or a general culture capable of resisting closed discourse. In this context, the Islamist appears as a substitute that fills a social and cultural vacuum, rather than as a merely religious phenomenon detached from its historical conditions.
Concise Formulation
The rise of Islamism: linked to the intensification of mass education and the decline of the intellectual’s position
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This idea belongs to Arkoun’s argument about the crisis of the intellectual sphere in modern Arab-Islamic societies. He does not explain Islamism as a purely doctrinal current; rather, he connects it to deeper transformations in the structure of education and the status of knowledge. Mass education thus becomes, here, a sign of expanded participation on the one hand, and of the fragility of critical formation on the other.
Why It Matters
This idea helps show that Arkoun reads Islamism as a symptom of a broader crisis in the production and circulation of knowledge. It also reveals that the problem is not simply the large number of educated people, but the nature of what they receive and the intellectual’s place within society. In this sense, the idea becomes a key to reading his critique of incomplete modernity.
Brief Evidence
The text links the rise of Islamism to the intensification of mass education, that is, to the widening circle of the educated and to social and educational transformations. But this spread did not necessarily ensure critical formation or a general culture capable of resisting closed discourse. In this context, the Islamist appears as a substitute that fills a social and cultural vacuum. He is not a religious phenomenon detached from its conditions.
Reading Questions
- How does the text connect the expansion of education to a change in the quality of public discourse?
- What makes the decline of the intellectual an important factor in explaining the rise of Islamism?
Degree of Documentation
Medium: the claim is composed from more than one place within the book’s material.