Arkoun was born in 1928 in Taourirt Mimoun, a Berber village in Great Kabylia in northern Algeria. His family was traditional, religious and relatively poor. His father was a shopkeeper in Ain al-Arba'a, a wealthy French settlement in east of Oran. He attended primary school in his Berber-speaking home village until he was nine-years-old. As the eldest son, he was expected to learn his father’s trade, while continuing to attend primary school. He studied at the Faculty of Literature of the University of Algiers and at the Sorbonne in Paris (agrégé in Arabic language and Literature, 1956 and Ph.D., 1968). He established his academic reputation with his studies of the history and philosophy of Ibn Miskawayh. As he began to consider how one might rethink Islam in the contemporary world, his questioning provided a counterpoint to the predominant interpretations of both the Muslim world and the non-Muslim West. As the editor of "Arabica", he broadened the journal's scope, and played a significant role in shaping Western-language scholarship on Islam. He is the author of numerous books in French, English and Arabic, including most recently: "Rethinking Islam" (Boulder, Colorado, 1994), "L'immigration: défis et richesses" (Paris, 1998) and "The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought" (London, 2002). His shorter studies have appeared in many academic journals and his works have been translated into several languages.