Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 7

Hakimiyya ). of God and supremacy of sharia to counter the idea of the sovereignty of the people and the nation- state. (39) Now, we can notice that the problem of this current that rejects modernity in whole and in detail and then isolates it completely from Islam remains the problem of making the cognitive separation from the world a kind of practicing worship and rituals and ruling by the Quran in which modernity is not mentioned, and therefore modernity becomes a sign of infidelity and atheism. At the same time, another current is trying to present an approach or reconciliation between the origin of religion and its openness to the new (modernity) and presents its justifications for finding ways to reconcile. Thus, this current tries to mitigate the total rejection of modernity, and we have to read the views presented to realize what kind of struggle is still being practiced in the intellectual arena. b) How do we modernize heritage? Should we try to integrate and reconcile with Western modernity? Can modernity be accommodated within our Arab-Islamic model? This team believes that Islam is not opposed to modernity, but the exegetical reading of the Qur’an is an obstacle to progress. Therefore, they argue that the clash is between the current civilization that we benefit from and our heritage. Muhammad Arkoun an Algerian scholar (1928- 2010) said that Islam in itself is not closed in the face of secularization, and in order for Muslims to reach the doors of secularization, they must get rid of the constraints and psychological, linguistic, and ideological restrictions that pressure them and burden them. They must restore the link with the historical reality of Islamic thought in the first four Hijri centuries. (40) Arkoun refers to a movement of intellectuals known as the Mu'tazila, which existed between the second and third centuries AH; this group posed the problem of the creation of the Qur'an. He stated that their mere recognition that the Qur'an is a creature represents a unique attitude towards the phenomenon of revelation, that it represents a position of modernity in the second century AH or the eighth century AD. In addition, this innovative theological position taken by the Mu'tazila would have opened a new field of knowledge capable of generating critical rationality similar to the rationality witnessed in the European West starting from the thirteenth century, had it not been for the opposition of orthodoxy in the fifth century AH, especially at the hands of Al- Qadir Caliph. (41) Accordingly, Arkoun believes that Arabs and Muslims, in general, suffer from a break from their creative heritage in the classical era, and European modernity more than two centuries ago, which makes the situation of Muslims difficult. He suggested the importance of adopting the intellectual position in order to study Islam within the context of modernity. He said that we have to analyze heritage entirely critically, not to belittle its value and importance, but rather in order to dismantle it and explain the reason for its emergence and formation according to the way in which it was raised and formed, and why it played its role as it did in societies in which the Islamic phenomenon dominated. (42) Accordingly, Arkoun called for critical reviews of heritage, and believed that the first stage that should be accomplished is to re-read the exegetical reading of the Qur’an today, or rather define the conditions for the validity of such a re-reading today. (43) He called for putting what was inherited in the interpretation of the Qur’an into question, in order to realize what the Qur’anic discourse really says. He said that my reading of Islam or my interpretation of it will not be a dogmatic reading that deletes everything else, as this traditional reading is the one that was imposed by force by the heritage, and focused on one space and obscured another space. On the contrary, we want to launch a dialectical reading of the historical social space. (44) Therefore, Arkoun dismantles the traditional view that has been established for hundreds of years, to replace it with a new theory based on the latest findings in the human sciences of rationality, methodology, and deep understanding. Abdul Majeed Al-Sharafi, a Tunisian thinker, believed that benefiting from modern curricula has become, in the current circumstance, an urgent necessity, and it is not a mental luxury, as some imagine. Al-Sharafi says that the system established by successive generations of Muslims was valid for traditional societies and has its counterparts in other ancient non-Islamic societies. Its borders have now become apparent and they are unsuitable for the conditions developed in the West, first, and then in the rest of the world. Therefore, it is necessary to search boldly for a radical alternative to it that guarantees the dual fulfillment of the principles of religion, not its literal historical interpretations, and the values of modernity. (45) Therefore, he said that instead of sticking to the literalism of the texts, we should search for their deep meanings in order to preserve their spirit and the goals they aim at. If most of the texts in our heritage had a jurisprudential approach, which is the approach that organized life in society, while life in our time is organized based on a situation that is subject to development, modification, and improvement, we no longer need the organizations of the predecessors because they were made for a time other than ours and circumstances other than ours. Then, at the end of the Volume XXII Issue VII Version I 16 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals A Islam and Modernity: A Relationship Predicament or a Dilemma of Absence?