PHD: Islam and enlightenment

I'm not sure how this is relevant to my thesis but here it is anyway.

So there's this historical time and process in Europe called "the Enlightenment". It has been defined by many philosophers including Immanuel Kant who published an essay in December 1784 entitled An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?

He defines the European Enlightenment as "man's emergence from a self-imposed immaturity". An enlightened man "had the courage to use his own understanding" and not be shackled by dogma or tradition.

According to Dr MA Muqtedar Khan, in Islamic terms Kant was speaking about ijtihad which Khan defines not in the narrow jurisprudential sense but rather in a broader sense as "independent thinking". 

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MAM Khan, "What Is Enlightenment? An Islamic Perspective" in The Journal of Religion & Society Volume 16 (2014)