Heritage and cognitive systems in Islamic heritage, Yahya Muhammad as a model

Abstract

The contemporary Arab intellectual scene has witnessed many elite intellectual projects that attempted to study issues related to Islamic culture and heritage. Yahya Muhammad is among the thinkers who sought to present a reading of Islamic heritage. His book, Critique of the Arab Mind in a Balance, is a philosophical critique in which he attempts to reveal the pitfalls, methodological and intellectual errors, and the reading presented by Muhammad Abed al-Jabri in the formation of the Arab mind. In this book, he also criticizes the external reading of heritage and blames Arab and Islamic elites for adopting this reading. According to him, the cognitive systems for reading Islamic heritage embrace two systems: the existential system and the normative system. The existential system concerns the two circles: philosophical and mystical, while the normative system concerns the rational and rhetorical (transmitted) circle.