A comparative study of Hassan Hanafi's and Reza Davari Ardakani's opinions and ideas about the decline and backwardness of Islamic societies

Backwardness and lack of development is one of the primary concerns of all Muslim thinkers, including Hanafi and Ardakani, and each of them offered a variety of explanations and contributing factors. Understanding the scope and reality of the Islamic world and posing the appropriate query are more important than the solution and what should be done. Using the qualitative analysis method described in this article, Hanafi and Davari Ardakani collected the essential data and information from books, articles, and other written sources and compilations. The importance of understanding the West and its modernity and culture is emphasized in the works of Davari and Hanafi, who believe that a significant portion of the problems confronting Islamic societies are the result of the incorrect design and imitation of the cultural and philosophical foundations of Western modernity. In certain periods of modern history, this resulted in the field of philosophical and political thought in the Islamic world being regarded as the most crucial path forward for Islamic societies in the plan for cognitive reconstruction of the Islamic world. According to Hanafi, the most significant factors of degeneration are the categories of reconstruction of Islamic religious epistemological foundations, dogmatism and self-righteousness, the superiority of transferable sciences over rational sciences, the rule of enlightened attitude, nationalism, and the absence of a rational approach to the Quran. Ardakani’s evaluation also identifies the lack of a development policy and a critical philosophy as obstacles to development.