Tahafut al-Ilmaniyya fi al-Sahafa al-Arabiyya
- Author died
- 1427 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Wafā’ lil-Ṭibā‘ah wal-Nashr wat-Tawzī‘
Tahafut al-Ilmaniyya fi al-Sahafa al-Arabiyya (The Incoherence of Secularism in the Arab Press) is a contemporary treatise written by the Egyptian judge and legal scholar Salim al-Bahnasawi (d. 1427 AH / 2006 CE) . The work gathers polemical essays and analytical responses directed against secularist and leftist discourses published in Arabic newspapers and periodicals .
Background and Composition
Al-Bahnasawi completed the introduction to the book on 5 Shawwal 1408 AH (20 May 1988 CE) . He composed the work by compiling his major newspaper articles written over more than twenty-five years in rebuttal of what he identified as secularist misrepresentations of Islam . The author maintained the original phrasing of the articles without alteration to document the intellectual debates and media environment of the era .
Al-Bahnasawi argued that Western colonialism had established an intellectual and political elite tasked with preserving secularism to maintain ideological dependency . He characterized secularism (al-ilmaniyya) as an imported European reaction against ecclesiastical overreach and the church's suppression of empirical sciences during the French Revolution, contrasting this European background with Islam's legal and social framework .
Structure and Contents
The book is organized into six core chapters :
- Chapter One: Brainwashing and Intellectual Currents (Ghasīl al-mukhkh wa-l-tayyārāt al-fikriyya) addresses Eastern and Western intellectual currents, critiques cultural campaigns aimed at marginalizing Islam, and responds directly to essays by prominent Arab literary and intellectual figures, including Yusuf Idris, Taha Hussein, Louis Awad, and Naguib Mahfouz .
- Chapter Two: Declaring the Bankruptcy of Arab Secularism (Ilan iflās al-ilmāniyya al-arabiyya) maintains that separating religion from society originates in biblical paradigms—specifically the maxim "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"—rather than the Quran or the prophetic Sunnah . It also critiques Arab secularists for contradicting their own premise of majority-derived democratic legitimacy by rejecting the implementation of Islamic law supported by Muslim majorities .
- Chapter Three: Marxism and the Arab Reality (Al-Mārksiyya wa-l-wāqi al-arabī) examines ideological overlap between Marxism and secularism regarding the removal of religion from legislation, noting that Marxism extends this exclusion to private worship and belief .
- Chapter Four: Moral Values Between Atheism and Secularism (Al-Qiyam al-akhlāqiyya bayn al-ilhād wa-l-ilmāniyya) explores how non-theistic and secular philosophies seek to subordinate Islamic ethical norms to non-religious social models .
- Chapter Five: Islamic Thought Between Reinterpretation and Suspension (Al-Fikr al-islāmī bayn al-taʾwīl wa-l-taʿṭīl) critiques the influence of secular pressures on contemporary Muslim thinkers who resorted to defensive reinterpretation or the suspension of established legal penalties (hudud) and textual rulings .
- Chapter Six: Religious Government Between Islam and Secularism (Al-Hukūma al-dīniyya bayn al-islām wa-l-ilmāniyya) analyzes secularist arguments that conflate Islamic governance with historical European theocracy .
Publication
The work was published as a single volume comprising 284 pages by Dar al-Wafa for Printing, Publishing, and Distribution in Mansoura, Egypt, with its first edition appearing in 1410 AH (1990 CE) .
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