Deconstructing Revelation: Toward a Radical Critique of Religious and Secular Reason

 

Deconstructing Revelation: Toward a Radical Critique of Religious and Secular Reason

Adis Duderija

In an era where religious fundamentalisms clash with secular dogmas, and where the specter of ideological extremism haunts global discourse, it is imperative to revisit the foundations of our intellectual traditions. As a scholar who has devoted decades to the study of Islam, Mohammad Arkoun (d.2010) has persistently challenged the unquestioned pillars upon which religious thought rests. From his earliest publications to his most recent, he has sought to interrogate the cognitive status of what Muslim theologians, exegetes, historians, and jurists have long regarded as revelation—a concept often accepted without scrutiny as an immutable given. This acceptance has erected a formidable edifice of tradition, rich in its intricacies yet perilously dependent on vast expanses of the unthought and the unthinkable. Conservative and fundamentalist forms of contemporary Islam, burdened by the ideological scars of modern history, have only amplified this by sanctifying classical textual definitions, transforming them into unassailable bastions of legitimacy. It is this enterprise that Arkoun has endeavored to deconstruct, not to dismantle faith, but to expand the horizons of what is intellectually conceivable—for Islam, for all religious legacies, and crucially, for the Western secular Enlightenment itself.

The Quran, proclaimed as the verbatim "Word of God" ( as opposed to a visionary like  theopoetic call to transcendence) delivered through the Prophet Muhammad, has been the cornerstone of Muslim epistemology. Theologians like al-Ghazali and jurists like al-Shafi'i built elaborate systems of interpretation—tafsir, fiqh, and kalam—upon this foundation, assuming revelation's divine origin as axiomatic. This assumption, while fostering a profound spiritual and cultural heritage, insulated revelation from the rigors of critical reason. Questions about its historical context, linguistic evolution, or psychological dimensions were relegated to the realm of the unthinkable, lest they undermine the sanctity of the divine. In doing so, Muslim authors inadvertently created a tradition that thrives on exclusion: what cannot be questioned becomes the bedrock of authority, stifling innovation and adaptability.

This phenomenon is not unique to Islam. Consider the Abrahamic siblings—Judaism and Christianity—where scriptural inerrancy has similarly constrained intellectual inquiry. The Torah's divine dictation or the New Testament's inspired authorship have often been treated as givens, leading to dogmatic interpretations that resist historical-critical methods. Even in the secular West, the Enlightenment's vaunted reason, championed by figures like Kant and Voltaire, has its own unthought territories. Rationalism, while liberating from religious superstition, erected its own idols: the myth of objective progress, the universality of European humanism, and the exclusion of non-Western epistemologies. Arkoun's project, therefore, is not a parochial critique of Islam but a universal one—a radical interrogation of reason in all its guises, methodologies, and epistemological postures.

Deconstruction, as Arkoun employs it, draws inspiration from thinkers like Jacques Derrida, but adapts it to the Islamic context. It involves dismantling the binary oppositions that structure religious discourse: sacred versus profane, revealed versus rational, orthodox versus heretical. By pushing back these boundaries, one uncovers the "unthought"—those silenced voices, marginalized interpretations, and historical contingencies that classical traditions have obscured. For instance, the early Islamic debates on the created versus uncreated nature of the Quran (as in the mihna under Caliph al-Ma'mun) reveal fissures in the notion of revelation that were later papered over by Ash'arite orthodoxy. Similarly, Sufi mystics like Ibn Arabi introduced experiential dimensions to revelation, challenging literalist readings, yet their insights were often domesticated into the unthinkable margins. Modern progressive Muslim minded scholars have continued in this tradition.

Contemporary Islam exemplifies the perils of this unexamined legacy. In the wake of colonialism, the rise of petro-dollar Wahhabism and it various offshoots in form of highly political forms of conservatism and jihadist salafism, and the traumas of decolonization, Muslim societies have retreated into a defensive sanctification of classical texts. Movements like Salafism exalt the (ahistorical claim) of non-existent  "pure" Islam of the salaf al-salih (pious ancestors), wielding hadith collections and medieval fatwas as weapons against modernity. This strategy not only legitimizes authoritarian regimes and extremist ideologies but also alienates younger generations, who grapple with globalization's demands. The ideological strains of modern history—from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Arab Spring's unfulfilled promises—have reinforced this bunker mentality, turning Islam into a fortress rather than a living tradition.

Arkoun's ambition is to subvert this stasis, not through reformist tinkering, but through a profound epistemological shift. Reform, as commonly understood, often means superficial adjustments—updating fiqh on women's rights or banking ethics—while leaving the core unexamined. Deconstrcution, by contrast, questions the very status of revelation as it came to be understood in Islamic orthodoxy : Is it a historical artifact shaped by 7th-century Arabian society? A linguistic phenomenon open to semiotic analysis? A psychological event akin to prophetic inspiration in other cultures? By posing these questions, Arkoun liberates Islamic thought from its self-imposed ghetto, inviting dialogue with anthropology, psychoanalysis, and comparative religion.

This deconstructive gesture extends beyond Islam. For Judaism, it means confronting the historicity of the Exodus narrative; for Christianity, reevaluating the resurrection's metaphysical claims. And for the Western Enlightenment? It demands a critique of its own revelations—the "self-evident" truths of liberalism that mask colonial legacies and economic inequalities. Reason, after all, is not a neutral tool but a cultural production, often complicit in power structures. As Foucault taught us, knowledge is power, and the unthought in secular reason includes the suppression of indigenous knowledges and the fetishization of science as infallible.

Critics may accuse Arkoun of relativism or nihilism, fearing that deconstructing revelation erodes moral foundations. But this misses the point: his aim is not destruction but expansion. By opening new avenues, he fosters a pluralistic epistemology where revelation is not discarded but reimagined—as a dynamic interplay of text, context, and human agency. Imagine an Islam that engages Freudian insights on the subconscious in interpreting dreams in the Quran, or draws from quantum physics to rethink divine omnipotence. Such integrations could revitalize religious thought, making it relevant to existential crises like climate change or AI ethics.

Moreover, this radical critique promotes interfaith and intercultural solidarity. In a world riven by Islamophobia and anti-Semitic tropes, deconstructing sanctified narratives reveals common human frailties. It challenges the Enlightenment's secular arrogance, reminding us that reason, too, has its dogmas. As Arkoun argued in his works, from Rethinking Islam to The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought, this intellectual gesture embraces all traditions in a shared quest for the thinkable.

Yet, resistance abounds. Traditionalists decry it as apostasy; secularists dismiss it as apologetics. To them, Arkoun says: the unthought is not a void but a fertile ground. 

In conclusion, Arkoun's lifelong endeavor has been to deconstruct the givenness of revelation, not to subvert faith but to liberate it. By pushing back the boundaries of the unthinkable, he opens vistas for a renewed Islamic thought, enriched by global dialogues. This is not mere academic exercise; it is a moral imperative in an age of ideological polarisation. Let us embrace this radical critique, for in questioning the foundations, we build bridges to a more enlightened future—one where reason, in all its forms, serves humanity rather than confining it.