This article discusses the ongoing discourses on love that first developed in the 1980s in France as they are articulated through the work of Malek Chebel. It argues that for Chebel 'love' contributes to the ongoing negotiation between Islam and the West and of Islam in France/Europe. The article considers his discourse on love within the context of the current debates on French constructions of community and membership and examines how love engages with the question of difference and identity to decentre and de-essentialise 'Islam'. It concludes that the negotiation between Europe and Islam involves questioning the role of Maghrebi culture and tradition in defining 'Islam' in France.
This paper examines the stakes in disentangling critique from its Western operation in order to locate a position of political freedom for the critical study of the Islamic tradition. It considers how the question of the critical study of Islam is a question about the political significance of the concept of critique, and the challenge that the study of the Islamic tradition poses to the discriminating operation of Western criticism. It argues that critique espouses the very philosophical ethos of the Enlightenment itself that challenges us to adopt the "a limit-attitude" of analyzing and reflecting on the limits of the Enlightenment and the political and governmental apparatus that accompanied it.
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