Diwan Bookstore hosted, at its Heliopolis branch in Cairo, a discussion and signing of “The Arab Mind: The Dialectic of Knowledge and Power” by writer and researcher Ghassan Ali Osman, published by Booktino, under the title “Heritage: Rupture or Rereading?!”.
The author was in conversation with researcher Ahmed Dahshan, editor-in-chief at the Center for Arab Eurasian Studies and a researcher in history and international relations. The discussion turned on the questions the book raises: how the relationship between knowledge and power took shape in Arab culture, and whether the way out of the crisis of reason lies in a rupture with heritage or in rereading it.
Ghassan Ali Osman argued that heritage should be neither sanctified absolutely nor condemned entirely; it is a complex historical and intellectual field to be read in light of the conditions of its production, its struggles, and its social and political contexts. He criticised ready-made ideological readings of heritage — both those that seek in it full legitimacy for the past and those that make it the root of all backwardness — stressing that true criticism means dismantling the structures of knowledge and power that shaped Arab consciousness, not issuing prior judgements.
The seminar also addressed the binary of tradition and modernity, the limits of rupture and the possibilities of rereading, and the place of Mohammed Abed al-Jabri in modern Arab thought.
At the end of the evening Ghassan Ali Osman signed copies of “The Arab Mind” for the audience, along with his two other books published by Booktino: “Mohammed Abed al-Jabri: From Philosophy to the Sociology of Consciousness” and “The Violence of the Elite: On the Roots of Formation and Privilege”.
- Venue
- Diwan Bookstore, Heliopolis
- Date
- Saturday 13 June 2026, 7:00 pm
- In conversation with
- Ahmed Dahshan
