Mohammed Arkoun (1928–2010)

> Le Professeur Mohammed Arkoun (voir 5e millénaire n°20 & 25) enseigne l'histoire de la pensée Islamique à l'Université de Paris III, et est Directeur de la revue Arabica.
Il est l'auteur d’une thèse intitulée "L'humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle: Miskawayh, philosophe et historien” (1982, Ed. J. Vrin), et des ouvrages suivants : "Pour une critique de la raison islamique” (1984, Ed. Maisonneuve & Larose), “L'Islam” (1989, Ed. Grancher), "La pensée arabe” (1991,4e éd., Ed. P.U.F. Que sais-je ?), "Le Coran” (1991, Ed. Flammarion.

> Georges Vajda. M. Arkoun. La pensée arabe.
In: Revue de l'histoire des religions, tome 191, n°2, 1977. pp. 223-224. … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhr_0035-1423_1977_num_191_2_6508

> Mohammed Arkoun, La pensée arabe, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1975, in-12, 128 p. (coll. « Que sais-je? », n° 915).
Se reporter au compte rendu de Jean JOLIVET
In: Les Études philosophiques, No. 2, PHILOSOPHIE POLITIQUE (AVRIL-JUIN 1980), pp. 245-247… ; (en ligne),
URL : https://drive.google.com/file/d/16cbnudDM9VgRrbPy-TF3NFlb2LdY1IIH/view?usp=shari...… (altro)

Algerian by birth, Arkoun is professor emeritus of Islamic thought at the Sorbonne and a critic of Islamology as it has been practiced in both East and West. Beginning with a series of deceptively simple questions—When was the Qur’an written and by whom? What did Muhammad want? How are the domains of spiritual and political authority delineated in Islam?—Arkoun argues for an intellectual reformulation of the Islamic tradition. His analysis is part anthropology (what is the function of a belief system for society?), part semiotics (“the theological-juridical discourse sacralizes state institutions”), and part history.

Muhammad left no written works of his own, and disputes among the three dominant streams within early Islam— Sunni, Shi’a and Khariji—pushed the caliph Uthman to gather the totality of the revelation into a single compilation called mushaf. The selection and editing of the mushaf was undertaken by officials of the (Sunni) Umayyad state. According to Arkoun, one of the traditions dismissed by the authorized interpreters of the mushaf was that of the Mu’tazili school, which held that the Qur’an was created by God “in time,” and hence open to discussion and shifting interpretations (itjihad). Instead, the imposed orthodoxy insisted that the mushaf contained the inviolable Word of God. Islamic orthodoxy—in the form of a Closed Official Corpus (the Qur'an)—was thus imposed and authorized by jurist-theologians sanctioned by the Umayyad state.

The Qur’an is the foremost foundational source of Islamic theology, but a second source or foundation is the sunna (the “example” of the prophet) known through the hadith—the prophet’s utterances in his role as guide of the Community of Believers and not as an instrument of divine will. The record of prophetic deeds proliferated after Muhammad’s death, so that by the 9th c. there were thousands of traditions. Sunni, Shi’a, Khariji and numerous other sects all recognize the authenticity of different versions of the hadith, so that there is no “standard Islamic theology.”

Similarly, Arkoun makes the point that there is no standard Islamic politics. State typologies and degrees of national unity vary among societies affected by colonization (such as Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco), those that underwent political tutelage (such as Iran, Iraq, and Yemen), and those that preserved relative independence (such as Turkey and most of Arabia).

Headlines and stereotypes in the West feed a powerful imaginary of a hostile, violent, backward Islam, notes Arkoun, but Muslim states—anxious to guarantee their survival and legitimacy—too often use Islam as an ideological lever and a tool for offensive or defensive justification rather than as “a source of value certainty in the fight against ignorance, eruptions of violence, corruption, and intolerance.” Arkoun identifies and reexamines some of the most pressing themes in Islam (human rights, the place of women, the tension between tradition and innovation) in a way that challenges preconceptions on all sides.… (altro)