Abstract

This article analyses how different world views in the modern Arabic-Islamic context are in competition and conflict with each other. The article highlights the compatibility or incompatibility of a religiously influenced world view on the one hand, and a modern-scientific world view on the other. The conflict of world views becomes especially evident in the early works of the Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, who deploys a specific concept of criticism in a central way. Inspired by Cassirer and Bergson but also influenced by Islamic mysticism, al-Azm develops a critique of culture and society, which is accompanied by a critique of language.