An Arab Predecessor to Western (Trans-)Secular Thought: The European Enlightenment’s Encounters with Ibn Ṭufayl and the Islamic Enlightenment

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This paper challenges the supposed geopolitics of Enlightenment secularism in a case study on the European Enlightenment’s reception of Ibn Ṭufayl’s classical work, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Alive, Son of Awake). It demonstrates how, by appropriating the tropes, literary techniques, and fictional setting of the Islamic “original,” Christian (Protestant) culture began unknowingly inventing its own patterns of secular thought. It argues then that to the pantheistic Enlightenment’s transsecular approach this tale, allegorically depicting Islamic philosophy’s (falsafa) independence from religious orthodoxy and its perfection in mystical wisdom (tasawwuf), offered both a conception of truth and of the Orient that might have felt very familiar.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPolitical Theology
Volume25
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)443-459
Number of pages17
ISSN1462-317X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.03.2024
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

    Research areas

  • Enlightenment, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, Ibn Ṭufayl, Islamic philosophy, mysticism, Orientalism
  • Literature studies

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