Kom: Časopis za Religijske Nauke (Jan 2020)
A classification of contemporary cognitive currents in the Islamic world with specific critical reference to neo-mu'tazilism
Abstract
One of the recent currents of thought in the contemporary Islamic world, which is becoming increasingly dominant, is developing on the margins of social and cognitive credibility of modern rationality. The basic methodological orientation that characterizes this cognitive current could reaffirm the historical memory of mu'tazilism, a classical theological school in Islam known for the fact that its representatives strongly promoted the primary importance of rational thinking. It does not matter whether we will accept to call these new Muslim thinkers NEO-mu'tazilites because of that - what will be much more important is to clearly determine their cognitive position in the overall classification of cognitive currents in the contemporary Islamic world. In fact, today we recognize four general currents of Muslim thought: (1) continuity of historical intellectual heritage, (2) mechanical promotion of modern knowledge, (3) critique of modernism from the perspective of Islamic intellectual tradition, (4) reconstruction of Islamic historical heritage from the perspective of exclusive credibility of modern knowledge. In this general cognitive classification in the contemporary conditions of the Islamic world, it will be crucial to distinguish two groups within the last current of thought, namely: (1) early Muslim reformers who were not experts in internal structures and hidden philosophical principles of modern science, (2) newer thinkers who are in no way connected with the historical heritage of Islamic classical knowledge, but under the cloak of popular religious terms reduce the key elements of the Islamic doctrinal and ontological stage in favour of the exclusive authority of the logical structures of modern rationality. These latter thinkers, who usually declare themselves as NEO-mu'tazilites, by essential reconstruction of the cultural and civilizational being of Islam, in fact discredit the social position of contemporary representatives of the classical Islamic intellectual heritage, who in the last few decades have renewed the internal sources of Islamic civilizational power in conditions of general reaffirmation of religious values. In this context, we will understand better the recent changes in the balance of global power and the models by which the modern West is reorganizing comprehensive capacities of its political, media and even academic authorities in order to consolidate in the long run new intellectual and educational structures in the contemporary Islamic world on the margins of modern rationality.
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