The (Un)Substantiated in Dan Diner’s Interpretations of the Islamic World’s “Backwardness”

Abstract

The author develops a dialogue with thoughts and views of Dan Diner expressed in his book Lost in the Sacred (originally published in German as Versiegelte Zeit). This essay focuses on – and disputes – Diner’s contentions that the Arab and Muslim/Islamic worlds are backward due to their resistance to such western concepts as democracy, human rights, and social and educational institutions, not to mention the Arabic alphabet and language and the Qur ’an (e.g., printing the text on a printing press, variant readings, and as an obstacle to progress) themselves.