Mohammed Arkoun

Mohammed Arkoun is as a senior research fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London and professor emeritus of the history of Islamic thought at the Sorbonne, where he taught from 1961 to 1992. He was also the editor of the journal ARABICA. His books include The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought, London, Saqi Essentials, 2002; Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, trans. and ed. by Robert D. Lee, Colorado, Boulder Westview Press, 1994; Pour une critique de la raison islamique (For a critique of Islamic reason), Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1984; Lectures du Coran (Readings of the Qur‘an), Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1982; and Essais sur la pensée islamique (Essays on Islamic thought), Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1973. Born in 1928 in Taourirt-Mimoun, Algeria, Arkoun resides in France. He became agrégé in Arabic language and literature in 1956 at the Sorbonne.

Modernity does not offer options for all aspects of life, whether political, religious, legal, ethical, educational, scientific, including in economics and technology. Islam, being a visionary ideology stored in the unconscious, offers instead two facets, positive and negative.

The negative facet consists of the following: the ritual, symbolic, ethically imposed, political, and identity-related functions of this traditional political Islam have remained psychologically powerful. The high price of this has been fewer new criticisms of the fundamentals, values and, ethical, spiritual and religious criteria of this very traditional Islam.

This state of affairs will endure unless democratic values become deeply rooted in the political and religious culture of the governing elites in Muslim countries and reach the so-called people, who are in reality subjects rather than citizens. In fact, there exist no citizens or a democratic citizenship in Arab and Muslim countries.

–Mohammed Arkun, "Toward the Liberation of Islamic Consciousness," Al Rayah (Qatar), 23 January 2008