Intellectuals in the Middle East

In this paper I would be giving a brief account of the intellectuals of the Middle Eastern region in the twentieth and twenty first century and how they are looking at the various issues ranging from politics to family life. This writings on the intellectuals and their different views would help the students of the Middle Eastern issues to have an informed understanding of both the major issues as well as its impact on the mentality and way of thinking of various think tanks. This in turn would be helpful to find out possible solutions to the various socio-political issues that the region is facing. The lack of such a knowledge base has impaired studies on the region and they in turn have led to false prescriptions. However, this should not be taken as a truth claim but it comes as another attempt at pursuing the academic goals of accuracy and approximation towards truth. Though the initial attempt would be limited to the contemporary intellectual trends in later stages it would try to cover the earlier intellectual traditions extending to the pre-Islamic period and coming down through the various ups and downs and changes in the regimes the region. The area to be covered is so extensive and hence limitations in both the qualitative and quantitative areas of research. On the one hand the study would be tracing the modern secular intellectual tradition covering a whole range of school of thoughts including Islamist, Marxist and Liberal secularist ones but not limited to that.

The idea is that in each week in the beginning of the study one intellectual would be picked out from among others with the discretion of author and later on, as the input widens, a coherent order would be worked out.

The first to be treated in this regard, as I feel, is one of the most influential thinkers of the Middle Eastern world