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Any discourse--the discourse of the Muslims included--is primarily and ultimately a set of endeavors, exerted by human minds, shaped within time and place, to comprehend the world of man and nature, with an attempt of each discourse to interpret its own sacred text and re-examine its own hidden assumptions and philosophical/epistemological underpinnings. Yet human hermeneutics, we would argue, is different from the sacred text it attempts to understand and explain.

This leads to the Islamic idea of Tadafu’ (constructive interaction/interplay) and tadawul (succession or alteration), and to a recognition of the dynamism of this world. Tadafu' does not necessarily mean conflict, even if it occasionally takes that form. Tadawul implies that permanence is one of God's traits and that everything else changes. It also implies that the world is not exclusively ours. On the human level, this means accepting to co-exist with "the Other" and to search for a common ground. Some conceptual frames of reference are nearer to Islam than others, and religions and humanist discourses are closer allies and partners than  other ideologies.

Humanist discourses that root themselves in the early notion of modernity that was not hostile to religiosity as such and that considers the human nature to be transcendental at essence are very relevant discourses to the new Islamic intellectuals. On the other hand, postmodern ideas are seen with a bit of criticism. The Qur'an, for instance, if seen according to the deconstructionists as a historical text that can be interpreted only with reference to some temporal circumstances and events, loses meaning and legacy as a revealed text. A denial of any ultimate foundation shakes the pillars upon which Islam is founded and can lead to nihilism and ultimate relativity.

Finally, the discourse of Western modernity demands either absolute certainty or absolute doubt, either a reason fully dominating the world, or a reason completely dominated by it (reduced to fluctuating matter and perpetual experimentation), and, finally, either a full presence (in the post-modernist idiom) or full absence. It is a discourse that shifts from rigidly materialistic rationality to an equally rigidly materialistic irrationality. The new Islamic discourse, on the other hand, tries to create a human space that goes beyond the materialistic extremes of Western modernity. It is neither lucid nor rigid, and tries to offer a complex matrix of notions and conditions that can keep the human agent active, rational and transcendental at the same time.

• Islamic Discourses... Diverse Visions

• Beyond Modernity: The Turn of the Sixties

• Re-capturing the Islamic Paradigm

• Human Endeavors…Transcendental Aspirations

Dr. Abdel-Wahab M. Elmessiri is a Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Ain Shams University, Cairo-Egypt.