In 1784, a German magazine announced an article contest on the following question: “What is enlightenment?” Among those who responded was the famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Kant's answer became a turning point in the history of the Enlightenment and still maintains its relevance today. It gave the Enlightenment its most famous and succinct definition. Kant defined enlightenment as “man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.” Kant characterized the essence of the Enlightenment as the “courage to think” for oneself freely. “Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!' That's the motto of enlightenment.”

Do we live in an enlightened age? Kant believed his generation lived in an “age of enlightenment” rather than in an “enlightened age.” The subtle difference between the two is important. An enlightened age is one in which all of the defining elements of culture and society follow the principle of reason. This is a mature state of humanism and rationality, a world in which reason has defeated the forces of anti-reason.

By contrast, an age of enlightenment is one in which the battle for the soul of humanity continues and the forces of reason fight the forces of ignorance and darkness. It refers to a process of gradual maturity and rationality. The end of history is within our reach; it is a matter of preparing the ground for a final settlement between reason and anti-reason, humanism and barbarism, light and darkness.

Admittedly, this is a simplistic picture of both the intellectual history of the Enlightenment and the present state in which we live. But ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, many politicians, intellectuals, columnists and zealots have fallen victim to such simplicities in the name of defending the bright rationalism of the Enlightenment! The geo-political conflicts and cultural tensions have been described in terms of a raging battle between the ideals and values of the Enlightenment represented by the US and Europe on the one hand, and its enemies, i.e., the critical left, religious conservatives and particularly the Muslim world on the other.

The debate about the Enlightenment has thus become intertwined with a debate about Islam. In his preface to his brilliant “The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture,” American historian Louis Dupre, “stunned by the attacks on September 11, 2001,” wondered “if there was any purpose in writing about the Enlightenment at a time that so brutally seemed to announce the end of its values and ideals.” Dupre does not mean to declare Islamic culture “unenlightened,” but he notes that “Islam never had to go through a prolonged period of critically examining the validity of its spiritual vision, as the West did during the 18th century.”

Others have been more clairvoyant in calling for an “Islamic Enlightenment” and “Muslim Reformation” to bring it into the fold of Western modernity. The title of a Thomas Friedman column in the International Herald Tribune on Dec. 16, 2001 read, “Wanted, an Islamic Enlightenment to end religious intolerance.” The American neocons have been keen on initiating a new enlightenment revolution in Islam. In the same week, the editors of the conservative National Review magazine regretted the fact that Islam did not go through the “chastening experience” of Enlightenment. It looks like everything will be just fine if we can find a way to create “enlightened Muslims.”

Needless to say, the matter is not that simple. Islam's encounter with modernity goes back to the 18th century, to the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. What the Muslim world encountered then were not simply the philosophical ideas of Hobbes and Kant or the critical skepticism of Voltaire. Yes, it was the new ideas of modern Europe in its infancy, but it was also European colonialism. It was science, but also Euro-centrism. It was technology, but also European weapons. It was rationalism, but also racism. It was new ideas about ethics, culture and society, but also imperialism. The problem is that after several centuries, the Muslim world continues to see the fruits of the Enlightenment along similar lines. This is what we need to understand first.