Contemporary Muslim Intellectuals on Critique of Islamic Reason

Abstract

This paper aims at studying a discourse on deconstruction of Islamic reason among contemporary Arab-Muslim intellectuals. The study is a library research, devising a descriptive method, where views and argumentations of selected scholars are presented and then analyzed. This study derives its data from primary and secondary sources. The former stems from the writings of those intellectuals who are directly engaged in the discourse, while the latter originates from available literature that directly or indirectly touch upon the topic. The study reveals that this discourse is triggered primarily by deep frustration felt by Arab intelligentsias as a result of the Arab defeat in Six Day War against Israel in June 1967. This frustration is further exacerbated by the rise of the phenomenon of Islamic Revivalism. Where does the problem/robot cause lie? Most contemporary Arab scholars of liberal tendency put Islamic Reason.  By reason here they mean almost as identical with episteme, paradigm, worldview, or super structure of thought, that is, an Intellectual mechanism by which Arabs-Muslims look, interpret, and responds to their realities. This reason, they said, is inherited from the past and that must deconstructed (which can be understood as deformed or destructed) if we are to see the revival of Arab-Muslim society in today’s World history. Keywords: reason, epistemology, nahdah, crisis.