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Mohammed Arkoun obituary Influential Islamic scholar who explored Enlightenment idealsMohammed Arkoun, who has died aged 82, was one of the most original scholars in the field of Islamic studies. The title of his 1984 seminal work, Pour une Critique de la Raison Islamique, sums up the nature of his scholarly and intellectual project. From quite early, Arkoun was attracted to the philosophical and intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment and the political and social ideals of the French revolution – ideals that were to have a profound influence in shaping his work. He saw, and readily acknowledged, that the Enlightenment was a European phenomenon produced by a particular European history, but he also argued that the history of Islamic thought testified to an aborted humanist project that could have led to the rise of an Islamic Enlightenment.Islamic humanism flourished during the "golden age" of classical Islam, a period from the eighth to the 12th centuries that witnessed the rise and flowering of religious sciences, natural sciences, literature, the humanities and the arts. Arkoun argued that the elevation of reason by this humanism not only led to the advancement of natural sciences, but had an impact on religious sciences, furnishing them with tools of reasoning that enabled them to develop into highly sophisticated systems of thought. This humanism was suppressed and all but wiped out of the subsequent pages of the history of Islamic thought.It was natural for Arkoun to ask: what went wrong with Islamic thought from the 13th century up to the present time, resulting in a prolonged state of decline and decay? His attempt to answer this question started early in his career, with works such as Contribution à l'Étude de l'Humanisme Arabe (1970) and Essais sur la Pensée Islamique (1973).In approaching his field, Arkoun propounded what he described as "applied Islamic studies". This was an eclectic methodology that drew on social sciences, particularly anthropology, philosophy, linguistics and other disciplines. On account of his training, his scholarship remained chiefly text-based, but he always insisted on placing the text within its historical context and treating it as a manifestation of the particular historical consciousness and moment that produced it. This approach proved particularly controversial in the Arab and Muslim worlds when he applied it to the Qur'an. His 1982 book Lectures du Coran laid him open to accusations of heresy.Arkoun was born in Algeria, in the Berber village of Taourirt-Mimoun, where he received his primary education. Moving later with his family to Oran was a big shock as he immediately felt his isolation as a speaker of Berber and had to engage in learning Arabic and French. His father wanted Mohammed, as the eldest son, to stop going to school and help in the family business but, thanks to his determination and the intervention of his uncle, he was able to continue. After studying at the University of Algiers he went to the Sorbonne, in Paris, where he was eventually to stay as a professor of Islamic studies.An aspect of modern Muslim countries that Arkoun constantly drew attention to was the crisis of education. Instead of becoming a means of learning and liberation from superstition, education has become, in most Muslim countries, a means of spreading what he described as "institutionalised ignorance". The spread of such education went hand in hand with the rise of Islamist discourse, even in countries where Islamists are not in power.Arkoun saw his project as one that goes beyond the confines of the field of Islamic studies. He believed in a critical approach that was also self-critical and hence aware of its own limits. As such, the critical approach becomes a process. Such work is also of a comparative nature – one cannot study Islam outside its monotheistic context and in isolation from Judaism and Christianity. He believed that if scholars in Muslim countries adopted such an approach in practising Islamic studies, they would not only liberate their discipline, but also themselves and, in the process, help liberate their societies.Arkoun retired in 1995. He moved to Casablanca, the hometown of his Moroccan wife, whom he married in 1990 after his divorce from his first wife. In the last decades of his life, he was a distinctive voice in the meetings of the interfaith dialogues movement where he argued for an acceptance of the equality of all faiths. He was decorated in 1996 as an officer of the French Légion d'honneur. One of the high points in his career was being invited in 2001 to deliver the Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, this recognition was elusive in his own country, in which he could not be buried, for fear of an Islamist backlash. He was buried in Casablanca.He is survived by his wife, Thurayya al-Ya'qubi, and his daughter, Sylvie, and son, Sami, from his first marriage. • Mohammed Arkoun, scholar of Islam, born 1 February 1928; died 14 September 2010IslamUniversity teachingAlgeriaFranceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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