Tradition in contemporary Arabic political discourse

Abstract

Introduction: Contemporary Arabic-Islamic political discourse can be classified under three broad group headings: the Islamists, the apologists and the ‘intellectuals’.1 Central to these groups’ discourses is a disagreement about what the Arabic-Islamic (medieval) tradition stands for, and how and which of its components (religious and philosophical) are to be accorded relevance in socio-political discourse and life. In this paper, I survey a sample of views and arguments of a number of intellectuals, focusing in more details on the work of Muhammad ‘Abed al-Jabiri. His work has been the subject of numerous discussions and debates by other Arab intellectuals and is also frequently cited and praised by scholars outside of the Arab intellectual scene. In my analysis, I note some of the scholarly contributions intellectuals are making in the study of the tradition; and I argue that their methods and analyses of Arabic-Islamic philosophy are driven less by scholarly-objective pursuits than by political considerations. This is not to suggest that there should exist a divide between philosophy and politics. There is, however, a strong tendency in the intellectuals’ discourse to subordinate the history of and methods in philosophy to advance what they deem as solutions to contemporary political problems. Accordingly, this discourse suffers from a lack of serious scholarly credibility.