Ibn Rushd-Prize for Freedom of Thought is
presented to Mohammed Arkoun
|
Orient and Occident – the
Forgotten Kinship 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. 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 is the editor of the journal Arabica: Journal of
Arabic and Islamic Studies founded at the Sorbonne in 1953 and published
by Brill. He produced an extensive body of scientific works, such as L'humanisme
Arabe au 4e-10e Siècle (1970, 1982), La Pensée Arabe (6e edition 2003),
Lectures du Coran (1982), Critique de la Raison islamique (1984), L'islam.
Approche Critique (1989), The Unthought in contemporary Islamic Thought
(2002); De Manhattan à Bagdad: Au-delà du Bien et du Mal (2003). Further info on Arkoun’s philosophy: http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/Info.Arkouns.philosophy.htm Further information on the Ibn Rushd Fund: http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/Pamph-E.htm
Curriculum Vitae of M. Arkoun
and publications: http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/CV-Arkoun.htm
Arkouns
Foto
:
http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/ArkounFoto.htm
The Jury: short CVs of the individual members : http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/Jury-03-E.htm
IBN RUSHD
Prizes for Freedom of Thought : http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/prizes.htm
Contact: Phone
+49 (0)30-446 50 218 or +49 (0)2962-5162 Fax
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