Orientalism and the Specificity of Islamic Cultures, with Dr. Nayla Abi Nader

Is there one Islamic culture, or many? Orientalism conflates, and flattens, two elements that are irreducible to each other: Arab civilisation, and Islamic thought. In this episode, Yassin Adnan and guest professor Nayla Abi Nader probe the historic developments of that conflation. Touching on a host of thinkers – writers, mysticists, philosophers, and historians alike – the two discuss orientalist epistemologies and their reception by Islamic Studies scholars like Mohamed Arkoun. Switch on video for English subtitles!

• Nayla Abi Nader is professor of Islamic Philosophy at the Lebanese University of Beirut. Expert on the critical thinking of Mohammed Arkoun and of Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri, dr. Nader is specialized in recent and contemporary Arab-Islamic thought. Her major publications include Tradition and Method between Mohammed Arkoun and Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri (2008), Modern and Contemporary Arab Thought: Critical Models (2019) and Charbel Dagher: Globalization and the Text (2023).