Philosophy and Its Islamic Moment: Pierre Bayle and Islam

Pierre Bayle paid particular attention to the Arabic scholarship of his century, as evidenced by the many articles in the Dictionary devoted to Orientalists. Yet his attention was not limited to a form of scholarly curiosity. On the contrary, Bayle made confrontation with Islam one of the keys to his reflection on religion as an anthropological phenomenon, to the extent that his commitment to the subject can be seen as a form of Islamic turn in Western philosophy. Islam thus constitutes a focal point for his reflections on tolerance, fanaticism and free thought, but also represents one of the paradigmatic places to which his historical method is applied, as far from reiterating all the legends about Muhammad, he intends to base himself primarily on sources rather than testimonies.