Ameen Rihani: A Writer with Philosophical Thoughts
Maya El Hage, Department of English and Translation, Faculty of Humanities, Notre Dame University (NDU), Louaize, Lebanon.
Abstract
Rihani’s essays in Ar-Rayhaniyyat include several texts that deeply highlight Ameen Rihani’s thoughts and ideas on philosophy. I chose two texts "In The Spring of Despair" and "The Most Exalted Prophet", both of which clearly urge the reader to question this kind of philosophy and its incarnation in Rihani's thoughts and works. Both texts are rich enough with concrete pictures and examples that could simply enrich the analysis of this philosophy setting it properly in time and placing it in its real era. Besides, both texts draw comparison between Rihani’s ideas on the philosophy of idealism, the pragmatic one and the realistic one with respect to human beings and their complexity, the world that surrounds them, the universe they belong to, the values and principles they believe in, and eventually the knowledge they aim at possessing.
This paper sheds light on Rihani as a person and a writer whose ideas are filled with philosophical thoughts. He, therefore, joins great minds such as Dante, Saint Paul, Socrates and others, who left their prints on his work and philosophy. Rihani’s philosophical thoughts make us wonder whether such ideas are pure idealistic ones directly linked to Plato and Descartes or his own variation with added ingredients of his own.