1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996630070403316

Autore

Viersen Harald

Titolo

The Time of Turāth : Authenticity and Temporality in Contemporary Arab Thought / / Harald Viersen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin ; ; Boston : , : De Gruyter, , [2024]

2024

ISBN

9783110984286

3110984288

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XIII, 416 p.)

Collana

Philosophie in der nahöstlichen Moderne , , 2749-6643 ; ; 6

Disciplina

181

Soggetti

RELIGION / Islam / General

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A note on transliteration and translation -- Introduction -- Part I -- 1 Contemporary Arab thought and the specter of the nahḍa -- 2 Evaluating the standard narrative -- 3 Time, modernity, and authenticity -- Part I: Conclusion -- Part II -- 4 Zakī Najīb Maḥmūd: Searching for the golden mean -- 5 Adonis: Authenticity and exploration of meaning -- 6 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ṭāhā: Authentic creativity and the path to modernity -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Person Index -- Subject Index

Sommario/riassunto

Recent Arab intellectual debates are often described as revolving around Arab-Islamic cultural heritage (turāth) and the role that it ought to play in modern society. This debate is standardly characterized as a confrontation between traditionalists and modernists, the former idolizing an ‘authentic’ heritage, the latter blaming traditionalism for Arab society’s inability to ‘modernize’.This study argues that this standard narrative has become overly dominant, making it impossible for different perspectives to be either voiced or heard. It calls for a critical review of how we think about contemporary Arab thought through an analysis of the progressive-linear temporal structure underlying the authenticity-modernity dichotomy. Looking in detail at three Arab intellectuals of the last fifty years – Zakī Najīb Maḥmūd,



Adonis, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ṭāhā – the study shows how this temporal structure underlies their thinking, but also how their efforts to break away from it build on a critique of its temporal basis. This analysis in turn enables an overhaul of the authenticity-modernity paradigm, which not only leads to a richer, critical engagement with contemporary Arab thought, but also brings out its moral dimensions.