The writing of this article was at least motivated by several reasons: first, Mohammed Arkoun is one of the postmodern/contemporary Moslem scholars (2st1 century) –after the era of Modernist Moslems such as Abduh and Ridha—who owns authority to re-establish the ‘submerged iceberg’ of the rich potential of Islamic thought. Second, in comparison with other scholars, Arkoun is a Moslem philosopher with the ability to combine “Islamic authenticity” and the broad knowledge of contemporary social sciences. From within his academic visions, he gave birth to the Applied Islamology. Third, Arkoun is a Moslem scholar who experienced a life among two traditions—since his childhood—Islam (Aljazair) and France (western) that definitely had great influence on his attempt at creating future Islamic study which aims to link many facets of both aforementioned civilizations, whereas at the same time many other Moslem philosophers—with few exceptions—would rather conflict the two instead.
Muhammad Azhar is affiliated to the Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Email: muazar@yahoo.co