The Time of Turath: Authenticity and Temporality in Contemporary Arab Thought

Recent Arab intellectual debates are often described as revolving around Arab-Islamic cultural heritage (turāth) and the role that it ought to play in modern society. This debate is standardly characterized as a confrontation between traditionalists and modernists, the former idolizing an ‘authentic’ heritage, the latter blaming traditionalism for Arab society’s inability to ‘modernize’.
This study argues that this standard narrative has become overly dominant, making it impossible for diffe...