Abstract

The paper explores and defends the concept of a Western-Islamic public sphere (which is secular but not secularist and which is Islamic but not Islamist), within which a critical Islamic intellectual universe can unfold, dealing hermeneutically with texts and politically with lived practices. Central for the discussion of the Western-Islamic public sphere are the intellectual projects of Nasr Abu Zayd and Muhammad Arkoun. The Western-Islamic public sphere defines what is at stake in the formative play of public representations where traditionalist foundations and modernist adaptations meet, clash, and produce discourse around their common disequilibrium.