An Arab Predecessor to Western (Trans-)Secular Thought: The European Enlightenment’s Encounters with Ibn Ṭufayl and the Islamic Enlightenment
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In: Political Theology, Vol. 25, No. 5, 05.03.2024, p. 443-459.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - An Arab Predecessor to Western (Trans-)Secular Thought
T2 - The European Enlightenment’s Encounters with Ibn Ṭufayl and the Islamic Enlightenment
AU - Meyzaud, Maud
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024/3/5
Y1 - 2024/3/5
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Enlightenment
KW - Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān
KW - Ibn Ṭufayl
KW - Islamic philosophy
KW - mysticism
KW - Orientalism
KW - Literature studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85186918450&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1462317x.2024.2322184
DO - 10.1080/1462317x.2024.2322184
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85186918450
VL - 25
SP - 443
EP - 459
JO - Political Theology
JF - Political Theology
SN - 1462-317X
IS - 5
ER -