The Manichaean Gaze in Western Islamic Studies: Epistemic Filters, Selective Reception, and the Reconfiguration of Classical Muslim Thought

Abstract

In contemporary Western discussions of Islam, certain classical Muslim scholars are treated as symbols of rationality, tolerance, rigidity, or militancy. This article examines the historiographical mechanisms underlying such classifications. It argues that the reception of medieval Muslim thinkers has often been shaped by a Manichaean gaze that silently rates the Islamic scholarly tradition according to modern normative expectations. Modern categories such as ‘rational’, ‘mystical’, ‘normative’, and ‘fundamentalist’ selectively foreground some  imensions of a corpus while obscuring or problematising others. The trajectories of Ibn Rushd, Ibn ʿArabī, and Ibn Taymiyya illustrate these dynamics. Ibn Rushd is often detached from his juridical commitments and institutional role and Ibn ʿArabī from his positions on jihad, hijra, and the enforcement of sharīʿa, while Ibn Taymiyya is approached primarily through the prism of modern radicalism. Recovering the plurality of classical Islamic thought requires closer examination of dimensions marginalised by contemporary interpretive categories.