Formulation of the Claim
The project aims to understand religious reason and confront it with modern scientific reason.
Explanation
For Arkoun, this claim is tied to an attempt to open religious reason to a modern critique that does not merely describe it from within, but places it in confrontation with the modes of scientific thinking that have changed the conditions of knowledge in the modern age.
In this context, what is meant is not a rejection of religion, but rather a critique of the forms of representation and interpretation that have made religious reason operate within closed limits, thereby making it possible to reconsider its tools and presuppositions.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom lies at the heart of Arkoun’s effort to move the discussion from the level of defending heritage or refuting it to the level of analyzing its intellectual structure. It is directly connected to what the book sets forth as a critique of the limits within which the Islamic tradition has hemmed in the possibility of historical and critical thinking.
It also illuminates the book’s orientation toward linking intellectual reform to changing the very tools of understanding, not merely adding new content to an old discourse.
Limits of the Claim
This claim does not mean that Arkoun reduces religion to a scientific formula, nor that he seeks to replace faith with science. The intended meaning is narrower than that: to question the reason that speaks in the name of religion and the way it operates.