02/07/2026 15:00 - 17:10

HALL: Parenzo - A18

Contact: Abu-Uksa W.

Chair: Abu-Uksa W.

This panel revisits the place of Enlightenment in the intellectual history of the Middle East from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Rather than treating Enlightenment as a singular, secular, and exclusively European phenomenon, the four papers collectively argue for a plural, dialogical, and multi-religious understanding of Enlightenment. By bringing together Jewish, Muslim, and Christian intellectual engagements with Enlightenment under Ottoman and post-Ottoman rule, the panel highlights the Middle East as an active site of knowledge production, critique, and epistemic negotiation.
At the core of the panel lies a shared concern with how intellectuals working within religious frameworks engaged with Enlightenment ideas. Across confessional boundaries, these figures confronted similar dilemmas: how to reconcile inherited forms of religious authority with emerging regimes of reason, science, and history; how to reform communal life without epistemic subordination; and how to articulate notions of progress that could preserve moral authority and social cohesion in a rapidly changing imperial and global order.