Background
Fuad, Zakariyya was born in 1927 in Port Said, Egypt.
Fuad, Zakariyya was born in 1927 in Port Said, Egypt.
Taught at the University of Ain Shams in Cairo. Then at the Department of Philosophy in the University of Kuwait (1987). Member of the editorial staff of the magazine alEikral-Muasir [Contemporary Thought] in which he published several philosophical studies.
Fuad Zakariyya first sought to understand the meaning of Arab and Islamic thought in comparison with the Western philosophical tradition. He showed sympathy for socialism, but criticized the doctrinal weaknesses of Marxism. Standing aside from any kind of extremism he exalted the role of reason in interpreting and understanding the world and in contending with intellectual underdevelopment. Subsequently Zakariyya’s reliance on reason widened to a more inclusive critical perspective, that of secularism. In his view the problem of secularism is the problem of the adaptation of the Arab and Islamic world to the challenges of modernity. Postmodernism is far from a reality in the Arab world of the late twentieth century because the process of modernization there is not yet complete. Zakariyya stresses the universal values of secularism. He does not reject the Arab-Islamic heritage, but points out that, while European science became a common and social patrimony, the Arab-Islamic heritage failed to develop a mass culture. Accordingly, the problem is not Islam as such but the practice of Muslim rulers. If Islamic renewal is no more than a struggle for formal and external issues, Muslims do not have a defined programme for reconstructing society. A secular state is, he maintains, the best solution.