The Meaning of the Concept in This Book
European modernity appears here as a historical model associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie, self-criticism, and a break with reason of a theological kind. It is not merely a description of a period in time, but a reference point against which questions of transformation and reform are measured, and of whether Muslim societies experienced a similar trajectory or remained distant from it.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
The book treats European modernity within a broader comparison between the paths of modernization in Europe and their failure or distortion in the Islamic world. Modernity therefore becomes a sign of what was lacking: a historical critical path that links reason to change and makes self-criticism part of transformation, rather than merely a discourse about it.
Within this framework, the text links European modernity to the idea of historical rupture, while also setting it in opposition to technical modernity when the latter turns into ideological patchwork, or when it arrives in a distorted form that produces neither intellectual creativity nor a clear human horizon.
How It Works Inside the Atlas
This concept serves several trajectories within the atlas:
- It supports the claim that traditional imams are ignorant of modernity or lack its historical horizon.
- It highlights that reforming education is a condition for resisting sectarianism and building plurality.
- It enters into the formulation of the idea that the contemporary crisis arises from a double rupture with tradition and modernity.
- It is tied to critical humanism, which reconnects Islam with reason, freedom, and history.
- It shows that contemporary Muslim societies are cut off from European modernity, and that confronting this rupture requires self-criticism, revisiting modernity, and deconstructing its discourse.
- It intersects with the idea that religion is a general anthropological phenomenon, and that understanding it requires an anthropological and deconstructive approach rather than a reductionist one.