Stance of Secularist Trend on Religion in Arabic-Islamic World (Farah Antun 1874-1922 as an Example)

Abstract

The world witnessed the dominance of scientism in the so-called Age of Enlightenment. Such a view is adopted to explain both natural and unnatural phenomena. After the Islamic World went to be acquainted with the West, before approximately two centuries ago, and then  the Western culture penetrated into scientific and epistemic Islamic circles, here the scientism touched the Islamic World . Some Arab elites gave importance to the scientism to become a considerable trend during the Renaissance. The main thesis , this study will tackle , is as follows: What is the stance of Arab proponents of scientism on religion? How did they treat religion? The detailed discussion of Arab scientism cannot be confined to a single essay; for this reason, the current study is to concentrate on one proponent of scientism in the Islamic World, Farah Antoun. His stance on religion and debate with Mohammad Abduh on this topic are both elucidated in the paper.