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This
Year's Ibn Rushd-Prize for Freedom of Thought is presented to Mohammed
Arkoun, Algerian-born philosopher searching for a way to a peaceful
co-existence of cultures and religions and who has rendered outstanding
services to societies in the Arab world by searching for a genuinely Arab
approach to reason and enlightenment.
Only
weeks after Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for her
courageous struggle for freedom and democracy in Iran, Mr Arkoun will be
presented the Ibn Rushd-Prize for his vision of reforming the Islamic world
by a thorough re-interpretation of the history of Religion in the Islamic
world. An independent jury, consisting of five prominent Arab
intellectuals, elected the emeritus professor of the Sorbonne University at
Paris Mohammed Arkoun to receive this year's award.
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Mohammad Arkoun
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The
IBN RUSHD Prize for Freedom of Thought will be presented for the fifth time
on December 6th , 2003. In the Spirit of its namegiver, the philosopher and
mediater between the cultures Ibn Rushd (1126 - 1198, aka Averroes), the
non-governmental organization IBN RUSHD Fund Fund for Freedom of Thought
dedicates itself to supporting the right to freedom of speech and democracy
in the Arab world. This year's prize called for an independent philosopher
who has rendered outstanding services to societies in the Arab world by
seeking for a genuinely Arab approach to reason and enlightenment.
Mohammed
Arkoun, one of the most prominent modern philosophers in the Arab world and
an advisor to academic and political personalities and institutions, is
explicitly opposed to the thesis of the 'clash of civilisations' that has
been made to look so inevitable. His approach is to show similarities
between the Islam and the West rather than magnifying the differences and
demonising the 'Other', as is unfortunately the prevailing attitude at
present. For Arkoun, both of the two imaginary poles "Islam" and
the "West" construct the other culture as the enemy.
Arkoun
stands for a dialogue between the cultures, his comparative approach to
religions and cultures make him a modern-time Ibn Rushd :
http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/BiographicalInfoIbnRushd.htm
In
his works, he scrutinises the cultures' common past and their present
mutual disapproval and condemnation that result mostly from what he calls
"institutionalised ignorance" that spread at an unprecedented
scale especially during the last 50 years.
He
reproaches the West for the image it has created of Islamic cultures that
they deem as remaining in medieval times. The emeritus professor for Islamic
history and culture points out that Bagdad was the most modern city of the
world in times when witches burnt in Europe. There, the holy inquisition
raged, while Islamic societies had a concept of humanism. Libraries and
universities were founded; Arab scientists were the ones who preserved the
mental heritage of Greek and Roman antiquity by translating Greek
philosophers and scientists. This heritage is completely absent from
Western minds and even neglected in Western sciences.
Mohammed
Arkoun's main focus, however, is on Islamic cultures. He criticises them
for being unable or unwilling to create an accomodation between Islamic
ideas and scientific and intellectual modernity. He calls for radically
rethinking the concept of 'Islam', to put an end to so many arbitrary
ideological and even phantasmagoric manipulations by both Muslims and
non-Muslims.
Arkoun
holds a more discriminating position about the current assertion that Islam
never knew the separation between state and religion. He regrets that this
intellectual project inaugurated and so strongly advocated by Ibn Rushd was
completely abandoned after his death in 1198 by the successive generations
in all Islamic contexts until the second half of the 20th century.
He
favours the French concept of laicité as the most appropriate system to
solve the problems related to authority and power, spiritual and secular
spheres of human needs and activities. Laicité protects religious freedom
as the modern expression of the freedom of each individual's consciousness.
For Arkoun, laicité therefore cannot be represented as an ideology aiming
at the negation of religion as a spiritual and ethical way of education for
human beings; it does mean, however, limiting the theologians' direct
influence on society.
Arkoun's
provocative thesis is that Islamic society has never had and desperately
needs its own renaissance to revolutionise the "closed official
corpus" that Islam has become especially in the last 40 years.
Mr
Arkoun will accept the award personally on December 6 , 2003 at 11:00 a.m.
in the Goethe Institut, Neue Schönhauser Str. 20 in Berlin-Mitte. There
will be a press conference after the ceremony of presenting the award; the
reception concluding the presentation will leave room for personal
discussion.
Mohammed
Arkoun - further information on his philosophy
Mohammed
Arkoun, one of the most prominent modern philosophers in the Arab world and
an active advisor of many political, academic, religious decision makers
for Islamic studies and systems of education, is explicitly opposed to the
thesis of the 'clash of civilisations' that has been made to look so
inevitable.
His
approach is to bring up through archaeological "excavation" of
the systems of thought and literatures emerged and spread in what he calls
the Mediterranean historical space, the common anthropological ground of
what is instrumentalised ideologically since 1492 (discovery of America and
expulsion of Muslims from Spain) to construct the two imaginary poles
"Islam" and the "West". Each pole has constructed the
other as the enemy; this mutual exclusion became a more obsessive system of
thought and representations since 1945 until today. This re-reading of
history of systems of theological, political and philosophical thought and
cultural production through all Mediterranean space needs to be developed
and taught in all contemporary societies.
 Arkoun stands for more than just a dialogue between cultures,
religions and philosophical attitudes; he uses a comparative
anthropological and historical approach to propose a common commitment of
the scientific community to open new horizons of meaning, interpretation,
and understanding to build a world space of solidarity between peoples,
civil societies and their respective states equally converted to a
governance grounded in that common anthropological soil recognised by a
scholarship and commonly shared by a world-wide consciousness of the
process of concrete construction with the European Union revolutionary
experience. Indeed, such a humanist vision has been felt and intellectually
sketched by Ibn Rushd with the mental tools and cultural frames available
in his time.
In his works, Arkoun scrutinises the cultures' common past and
their present mutual disapproval and condemnation that results mostly from
what he calls institutionalised ignorance spread at an unprecedented large
scale especially during the last 5O years. As an example of this new
humanist vision, the Emeritus professor goes deeper in his archaeological
digging the common universe of Ibn Rushd, Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas as
the three symbolic Figures that will help to go further in the common
effort to (re)activate the necessary intellectual solidarity that will
enable us to rethink with new intellectual paradigms, all the communitarian
and nationalist systems of "values" still used to legitimise
so-called "just wars".
Mohammed Arkoun's main focus, however, is on Islamic cultures.
He criticises them for being unable or unwilling to share and contribute to
the construction of scientific and intellectual modernity. After the death
of Ibn Rushd (1198), the intellectual project so strongly and clearly
inaugurated by him following other thinkers before, has just been abandoned
by the successive generations in all Islamic contexts until the second half
of 20th century. He calls for rethinking radically the concept of
"Islam" to put an end to so many arbitrary ideological and even
phantasmagoric manipulations by all types of social actors, Muslims and
non-Muslims.
Arkoun defends a more nuanced position about the current
assertion that Islam never knew the separation between state and religion.
He is convinced that the French concept of laïcité refers to a very
original and rich historical endeavour to solve the problems related to
authority and power, spiritual and secular spheres of human needs and
activities, ways of producing secular law and dealing with the human
experiences of the divine… It is a critical way of thinking, communicating,
teaching, handling knowledge, behaving in a space of citizenship. It
recapitulates all the positive irreversible conquests of intellectual and
cultural modernity. For Arkoun, laïcité cannot be presented as an ideology
aiming the negation, or any kind of hostility to religions as spiritual and
ethical ways of education for human being. Laïcité protects religious
freedom as the modern expression of the freedom of each individual
consciousness. All the philosophy of human rights is included in the way of
thinking and acting concretely in a modern civil society.
Thus, Arkoun's provocative thesis is that Islamic thought and
society have never had and desperately need their own renaissance to
revolutionise the "Closed Official Corpus" that Islam has become
especially in the last 40 years.
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