Mohamed Arkoun, a great philosopher and scholar, particularly on the role of Islam in the development of Maghrebi society and on the relationship of Islam and the West, died Tuesday September 14 in Paris and was buried the following Friday, September 17 in Achouhada cemetery in Casablanca. He was 82 years old. In Robert Altman’s cinema adaptation of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, the angel of death whispers to a woman weeping over the discovery that a loved one has died peacefully, “The death of an old man is not a tragedy.”

That struck me as fundamentally true. But I thought to myself that it doesn’t make it less painful to those close to him. And while it may not be a tragedy, it is certainly still a loss, especially when the man is a figure of the stature of Mohamed Arkoun. I remember reading his writing when researching my dissertation, and it returned to my mind in the weeks and months after 9-11. It comes to mind again now, as we see nasty rhetoric against heating up again in this country.
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