This paper interrogates the epistemological frameworks through which the intellectual heritage of Muslim societies has been constructed, with particular attention to the case of Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808 AH / 1406 CE) and Ibn ʿArafa al-Warghamī (d. 803 AH / 1401 CE) in 14th-century Ḥafṣid Tunisia. The analysis foregrounds the enduring impact of Orientalist historiography—exemplified by scholars such as Ernest Renan, Ignaz Goldziher, and Robert Brunschvig—on the conceptualization of Islamic intellectual history, particularly the widely held narrative of an epistemic rupture between rationalist and theological traditions. These narratives, often embedded within colonial discourses, continue to inform contemporary scholarship, as evidenced in the works of Mohammed Abed al-Jabirī, Saʿd Ghrāb, and ʿAbd al-Salām al-Shaddādī, who variously frame the period in terms of intellectual decline, methodological fragmentation, or ideological contestation.
Fouad Ben Ahmed is a Professor of Islamic Philosophy at Al-Qarawiyyin University – Dar el-Hadith el-Hassania Institute for Higher Islamic Studies, Rabat, Morocco.
Co-sponsored by NELC, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program LOCATION:Center for Middle Eastern Studies 102 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20250408T200000Z DTEND:20250408T213000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR