HASSAN HANAFI: NEOMODERNISM AS LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Abstract

The article is devoted to Hassan Hanafi(born 1935), a Philosophy professor in Cairo University, an Egyptian intellectual and one of the key members of the renovationist movement in Islam. Considering Hanafi’s life serves to trace his formation as a thinker. The main componentsHanafi ’s philosophical project are underlined, as well as its background and main sources. It is demostrated that this project might be categorised as a kind of liberation theology. Especially the emphasis is given to such concept of this Egyptian intellectual as ‘occidentalism’. The author’s critical analysis of occidentalist program goes to show its weak points and the ambiguity of its basic assumptions. In conclusion the author summarises three primary aspects of Hanafi’s theoretic position which characterize its unique place in the context of Islamic neomodernism.