Mohammed Arkoun

Mohammed Arkoun, who lived from 1928 to 2010, was an Algerian-French scholar and thinker regarded as one of the most influential secular academics in Islamic studies, advocating Islamic modernism, secularism and humanism. Born in Taourirt Mimoun, Algeria and based for most of his career in Paris, he pioneered what he termed applied Islamology, an approach seeking to uncover marginalized and repressed elements within Islamic tradition and examine Islam as a comprehensive cultural and religious system beyond traditional dogma, publishing works including Rethinking Islam in 1994 and The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought in 2002. He was decorated Commander of the French Legion of Honor in 2004, delivered the Gifford Lectures in 2001, and received the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2003.