These Enlightened Lands

This research paper reevaluates the Enlightenment as a global phenomenon with relevant experiences of the Horn of Africa and the Middle East as fitting in this tradition. The Enlightenment is noted as a period in intellectual history in which societies saw a rise in rationalist philosophical ideals and an ardent call for the separation of church and state. Enlightenment historical discourse has been built on the notion that this period was exclusively European, and the ideals of the Enlightenment only existed within the continent. What is often ignored is the fact that Enlightenment ideas existed elsewhere in the world, and these intellectual traditions arose in their respective unique circumstances – even if not dissimilar from those in Europe. In the seventeenth century in the Horn of Africa, political and religious strife led to a pair of seminal philosophical works written by Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat, espousing Enlightenment ideas. In the Middle East, the Ottoman period of stagnation and reform beginning in the late sixteenth century facilitated a reinvigoration of Islamic science and rationalist philosophy led by the empire’s ethnic minorities. The perpetuation of the Enlightenment as a solely European phenomenon in spite of these parallel instances in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East represents the power of narrative and control of knowledge production. The Enlightenment, considered the beginning of modern statehood and politics, is also regarded as a marker of the beginnings of modernity. By associating the Enlightenment solely with Europe, European hands have crafted the modern world as something of their own exclusive conception, and accordingly slated the histories of other regions as adopting and following the European tradition. My research aims to critically revisit that and offer a corrective by discussing the African and Middle Eastern origins and contemplation of those very ideas.