The position of orientalism in contemporary Arab thought: A study of Mohammed Arkouns critique of the orientalist approach

Abstract

Many orientalists have been involved in studies and research on this heritage from different points of view. What they almost all share is unified scientific approach called the philological approach. This study examined orientalism and its methodology through the study of orientalists of the Arab Islamic heritage in the full sense of this heritage, on the basis that orientalism is an epistemological tradition established in the European institutes. In addition, it aimed to identify the research efforts of the thinker Mohammed Arkoun in his reading of the efforts of orientalist Europeans, and his critical position to the traditional approaches that study heritage, that which he considered a minor approach due to its inability to uncover the problems of Islamic thought, the historical and non-historical. This was due to the fact that they hide the living reality of Muslim societies. In addition, Arkoun considered that this approach, despite its scientific claim, remains within the framework of producing knowledge that imitates the concerns of European circles and societies rather than the concerns and preoccupations of those who possess this heritage. The study concluded that Although he does not deny that Orientalism provided some services to the Arab Islamic heritage, Mohammed Arkoun has not only criticized Orientalism, its methods, its purposes, and its functions, but exceeded to criticism and tried to offer an alternative approach based on the idea of pluralism in disciplines as in modern social sciences, starting from what he calls the alternative approach. This approach is based on applied Islam where Islamists mimic the reality of the heritage and the reality of the Arab-Islamic societies, to presents heritage in the light of modernity, This is in the sense that we need to study the heritage scientifically so that we can enter into modernity with confidence.