Trends in Arab Thought

SADEK JALAL AL-AzM, head of the philosophy department at Damascus University, is considered among the leading thinkers in the Arab world. He is the author of numerous books, both philosophical and political, including several works in English on Immanuel Kant. His works in Arabic include al-Naqd al-Thati Ba'd al-Hazima [A self-critique in the wake of defeat], about the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; Naqd al-Fikr al-Dini [A critique of religious thought]; Thihniyat al-Tahrim [The taboo mentality]; and Ma Ba'da Thihniyat al-Tahrim [Beyond the taboo mentality]. He was interviewed in Beirut on 26 June 1997 by Saqr Abu Fakhr for our sister publication, Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyah, which ran a far longer version of this interview in its summer 1997 issue.