Arkoun, M (2003) 'Rethinking Islam Today' ANNALS AAPSS 588 July 2003 p.18-39

In studying progressive Muslim masculinities, I am studying Islam. Ever since I became a Muslim, I have dithered, dived, ducked and eventually come to face a number of important questions, including:
(1) What does it mean to be a Muslim in the light of contemporary understandings of language, society and history?
(2) How can I answer this question in a way which effects a personal transformation of the kind apparently demanded by The Qur'an?

The framing of both these queries is achieved, to a large degree, by Arkoun in 'Rethinking Islam Today'.

Arkoun uses the concept of 'unthought' to define ways of thinking that appear irreconcilable with orthodox (Salafi) Islamic writings. These include the idea of MYTH and SYMBOL used (but as yet not clearly defined) by anthropologists; and TRADITION and ORTHODOXY. As regards to the latter, Arkoun points out that "no effort (ijtihad) to seperate orthodoxy as a militant ideological endeavour" used by States from "...religion as a way proposed to man to discover the Absolute." (Arkoun, p.22) This is a point Arkoun returns to as a key concern within his reflections.

Arkoun key thesis is to contrast the intellectual perspective of Salafi Islam with the understanding of Islam which comes from confronting contemporary knowledge systems, which for Arkoun means post-war social theory where 'implicit postulates are made explicit'. These knowledge systems view Islam as "...only one attempt, among many others, to emancipate human beings from the natural limitations of their biological, historical and linguistic condition" (Arkoun, p23), and demands thinkers differentiate between self-justifying religious discourses (ideological) from ones that take onboard contemporary understandings of society, history and language (ideational).

He then goes onto to identity 'six heuristic lines of thinking' which confront Islamic knowledge systems today, which I reiterate and interpret thus:

1. The semiotics of language are a priori to revelation - this also confronts classical European language methods, such as philology;

2. Historicity, whereby "there is no access to the absolute outside the phenomenal world of our terrestrial, historical existence" (Arkoun, p.24);

3. There are many levels and forms of reason interacting with levels and forms of imagination. Arkoun introduces the concept of the 'social imaginaire' which, along with imagination, are viewed as 'dynamic faculties of knowledge and action" (Arkoun, p.25);

4. Faith is shaped, expressed and articulated through and in discourse;

5. The traditional system of legitimization (usul al-din and usul al-fiqh) no longer has "epistemological relevance" (Arkoun, p.25)

6. "The search for ultimate meaning depends on the radical question concerning the relevance and existence of ultimate meaning" (Arkoun, p.25). In other words, Islam means nothing if we think meaning is meaningless. But why do people think meaning is meaningless? Arkoun points out that improved 'intellectual equipment' is needed to 'better understand the relationship between meaning and reality'.

Arkoun then illustrates some of the fundamental assumptions of traditional Islamic thought by exploring the agreed underlying assumptions in the opposing views of Ghazali and Ibn Rushd.

In framing a new approach, Arkoun claims that it is possible to distinguish between the 16th century+ intellectual tradition of the West from the anti-religious, political secularism most evident in French laicite. I'm not so sure, mate!

More convincingly, and interestingly, Arkoun's move from the unthinkable (l'impense) to the thinkable draws attention to the limits of compartmentalised academic discourses. He points out that, whilst Orientalists have raised issues like historicity, they say little about the epistemological problems implicit such an approach. Arkoun proposes that the history of Islam needs to understood in its role within the history of Islam and Islam today - in other words, in terms of what it has meant and means to Muslims. This requires drawing on disciplines such as history and anthropology in unison.

Arkoun's intellectual and cultural framework for thinking the unthinkable begins with the idea of 'the Societies of the Book', which refers to societies shaped by revelation since the 16th century, and is important in defining "the verticality which has constituted the religious imaginaire in the Near East" (p.30). In this imaginaire, the Word of God and God are the same.

Arkoun's key 'thinkable' is the need for Quranic exegesis in terms of contemporary understandings of mind and language, pointing out that all exegesis is inevitably a hermeneutic act. But this is no Orientalist bash at Islam. Arkoun specifically rejects negative and destructive approaches to exegesis, instead pointing out that deconstruction of the social imaginaire of both secular societies and societies of the book. As an example, Arkoun develops the concept of the 'debt of meaning' as relevant to understanding both the way people conform to contemporary authority, and the way Muslims have interpreted the life of the Prophet at Medina (612-632 CE).

Arkoun elaborates on these idea by exploring the concept of hegemony of knowledge, the nostalgia for a unified vision of human destiny, the 'rupture' between ethics and materialism in contemporary capitalist societies and the conflict between meaning and power.

In concluding, Arkoun stresses a number of key issues raised in the paper, including:

• the importance of understanding the socio-historical spaces in which religions emerge and exist;

• the nostalgia for a unified vision in societies of increasing specialisation, where religions as unified systems of belief which address fundamental questions of human destiny;

• the problem of positivism discrediting religions without offering an alternative;

• the potential unifying function of some aspects of secularism and the unrecognised understanding of religions as a source of symbols for human existence;

• the belief that religious revivalism is really a "powerful secular movement disguised as religious discourse"; and

• the importance of acknowledging the richness and diversity of Muslim culture and ensuring that voices 'from the centre' do not dominate debates.

Arkoun gives special emphasis to his concept of 'Societies of the Book', which he believes, "...could help to build a new humanism in religion which would integrate religions as cultures and not as dogmas for confessional groups" (Arkoun, p.38), a view which he claims is not taken seriously by theologians of social scientists. The Tasneem Gender Project hopes to take on board this insight in its own research and writings.

Arkoun's arguments are close and complex, and I probably have failed to do them justice. My selection, emphasis and interpretation herein inevitably reflects my own concerns. All of which is as much food for thought as thinking itself.

See also: Arkoun's Ten Propositions

© Tasneem Project 2004

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