Islam and secular modernity under western eyes: a genealogy of a constitutive relationship (original) (raw)
Islamicate Secularities in Past and Present
Historical Social Research, 2019
Quote as: Dressler, Markus, Armando Salvatore and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (eds). 2029. Islamicate Secularities: Past and Present, in Historical Social Research 44(3). All papers are accessible through https://www.gesis.org/en/hsr/full-text-archive/2019/443-islamicate-secularities-in-past-and-present Partly as a product of encounters with Europe, accelerated in the last 150 years, Islamicate societies developed new epistemic distinctions and structural differentiations between religious and non-religious spheres and practices. This special issue conceptualizes these distinctions and differentiations as “Islamicate secularities”, thereby connecting Marshall Hodgson’s notion of the “Islamicate” with the concept of “Multiple Secularities”. The individual contributions address the question of secularity in relation to Islam with a variety of spatial and temporal foci that range from Turkey to China and Indonesia, from the present to the colonial era and even precolonial contexts. The issue thus provides an array of perspectives on how Muslims have engaged with religion in relation to social and political conflicts and how this has led to contested reifications of ‘Islam’ and its boundaries, especially in relation to politics. As preliminary result, a tendency towards ‘soft distinctions’, kept under the umbrella of ‘Islam,’ emerges. Quote the Introduction as: Dressler, Markus, Armando Salvatore, A., and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. 2019. Islamicate Secularities: New Perspectives on a Contested Concept. Historical Social Research, 44(3), 7-34. In the colonial era, new distinctions and differentiations between religious and non-religious spheres took shape within inner-Islamic discourses, partly as a product of encounters with Western knowledge. This introduction conceptualizes these distinctions and differentiations in relation to Islam, drawing on Marshall Hodgson’s concept of the Islamicate, which we employ for our heuristic notion of Islamicate secularities. It charts the paradigmatic conflicts that shape the contested fields of Islamic and secularity/secularism studies. The introduction discusses the epistemological and political context of these debates, and argues that theoretical and normative conflicts should not hinder further empirical inquiries into forms of secularity in Islamicate contexts. It also explores promising theoretical and methodological approaches for further explorations. Particular emphasis is laid on the historical trajectories and conditions, close in time or distant, that have played a role in the formation of contemporary Islamicate secularities. Keywords: Secularity, multiple secularities, Islamicate secularities, Islam and politics, Marshall Hodgson.
Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates
Quote as: Masud, Khalid, Armando Salvatore, and Martin van Bruinessen (eds). 2009. Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. This textbook is a pioneering study providing an introduction to and overview of the debates and questions that have emerged regarding Islam and modernity. Key issues are selected to give readers an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The various manifestations of modernity in Muslim life discussed include social change and the transformation of political and religious institutions, gender politics, changing legal regimes, devotional practices and forms of religious association, shifts in religious authority, and modern developments in Muslim religious thought.
Islamicate Secularities: New Perspectives on a Contested Concept
Historical Social Research, 2019
Cite as: Dressler, Markus, Armando Salvatore, and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. 2019. “Islamicate Secularities: New Perspectives on a Contested Concept,” Historical Social Research, 44 (3): 7-34. Abstract: In the colonial era, new distinctions and differentiations between religious and non-religious spheres took shape within inner-Islamic discourses, partly as a product of encounters with Western knowledge. This introduction conceptualizes these distinctions and differentiations in relation to Islam, drawing on Marshall Hodgson's concept of the Islamicate, which we employ for our heuristic notion of Islamicate secularities. It charts the paradigmatic conflicts that shape the contested fields of Islamic and secularity/secularism studies. The introduction discusses the epistemological and political context of these debates, and argues that theoretical and normative conflicts should not hinder further empirical inquiries into forms of secularity in Islamicate contexts. It also explores promising theoretical and methodological approaches for further explorations. Particular emphasis is laid on the historical trajectories and conditions, close in time or distant, that have played a role in the formation of contemporary Islamicate secularities.
Islam Under the Conditions of Modernity
2015
The article proposes a possible methodological perspective for conceptualizing Islam and modernity in the context of the dichotomy "traditional vs. modern". The author outlines the different images of Islam in their specific sociological profiles as related to (and stemming from) the canon of norms that constitute the Islamic community and construct community ties, the basic resource of which are religious values. A scrutiny of the modes of difference and otherness through the lense of neighbourhood reveals otherness to be a latent conflict factor susceptible to political mobilization and populist manipulation. The author identifies the problem fields that generate the clash between secularism and Islam.
This paper argues that the position of contemporary Muslim populist movements, with regard to the concept and scope of the state, stands in direct contradiction not only to Islamic values and beliefs, but is also contrary to political practices developed in historical Muslim societies. It further explores the extent to which religious beliefs and values were related to the political structure and public policy of the historical Muslim society. The paper contends that the political order that emerged under Islam was never perceived as an exclusively Muslim, but was constructed on the basis of universal principles that transcend sectarian divisions. The paper, therefore, concludes by underscoring the need to have a fresh Islamically-based conceptualization of political action and organization in ways that would help reclaim the moral core of social life, eroded with the advance of western secularism, without sacrificing the important principles of freedom and equality.
Dynamics of Islam in the Modern World. Essays in Honor of Jamal Malik
2022
Dynamics of Islam in the Modern World scrutinizes and analyzes Islam in context. It posits Muslims not as independent and autonomous, but as relational and interactive agents of change and continuity who interplay with Islamic(ate) sources of self and society as well as with resources from other traditions. Representing multiple disciplinary approaches, the contributors to this volume discuss a broad range of issues, such as secularization, colonialism, globalization, radicalism, human rights, migration, hermeneutics, mysticism, religious normativity and pluralism, while paying special attention to three geographical settings of South Asia, the Middle East and Euro-America.
Muslim Societies and the Challenge of Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Approach
2010
It took considerable time to prepare and finalise this book. The main idea of publishing a multidisciplinary discussion on Muslims, globalisation and secularism took place in 2006 at the EASA (European Association of Social Anthropology) Biennial Conference in Bristol, England. I wish to thank all the participants of the workshop Muslim diaspora, Euro-Islam and the idea of the secular for their contributions, active discussion, criticisms and suggestions. Muslim Societies and the Challenge of Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Approach has brought together fifteen, both junior and senior, scholars from not only different academic disciplines and traditions but also regions. I wish to thank all the contributors for their hard work, for discussing their chapters with me and for their patience. In particular, I wish to thank Prof. Bryan Turner, who is my co-editor of the book series Muslims in Global Societies, for his support during the extended time in which the book took shape. A special thanks goes to the hard working team at Springer, and in particular to Ms Willemijn Arts and also Ms Ingrid van Laarhoven, with whom many email exchanges took place. This manuscript travelled with me to different parts of the world, from Scotland to Australia and then finally to Singapore. I further wish to thank the Asia Research Institute, at the National University of Singapore, for the time it has provided in allowing me to finish the manuscript so that today you can read it.
The Construction and Deconstruction of Secularism as an Ideology in Contemporary Muslim Thought
Asian Journal of Social Science, 2005
This article starts with a sketch of the encounters and experiences of modern secularism in four areas of the Islamic world (Turkey, Arab world, South Asia and Southeast Asia); these point to the diverse conditions and constructions that have become central issues of regional and trans-regional discourse: laizism through reform, nationalism through decolonization, Islamic nationalism through state formation, and tolerance through traditional multi-ethnic environments. In analysing the basic writings of five exemplary modern Muslim thinkers, it is shown that modern Islamic thought, tied to the idea of mutual exclusive ideological constructions of secularism and Islamism, remains ambiguous while at the same time facing the factual unfolding of secularism in Muslim countries: the works of Mawdudi contain absolute denial of secularism; al-Qaradawi argues for the strict opposition and separation of the secular and the religious; al-Attas denies that Western processes of religious secularization are applicable to the development of Islam. On the other hand, Iqbal and Rahman, although maintaining a clear distinction between the secular and the religious, point to coinciding dimensions of religious and secular dimensions in modern political and social life. The reflection of the secular and the religious is highly shaped by historical and political influences as well as by ideologization, thus creating obstacles for fruitful conceptual reconstructions of the given dimensions of the coincidence of both -Islam and the secular conditions of modern society. A.J.S.S. 33:3 (363-383) also available online © 2005 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden see www.brill.nl 364 • Muhammad Khalid Masud
When Words Collide? Islam and Modernity – Alternative Paradigms, Contrasting Authentic Ideals
Conflict between Islam and the West is rooted in contrasting worldviews, informed by alternative moral underpinnings and differing existential implications. Furthermore, engagement between the Islamic and Western paradigms is defined by imbalanced power relations in which the subaltern Islamic Paradigm is pressured into conformance by the dominant Western Modernist paradigm. Using the issue of freedom of expression as an entry point, this article examines the contrasting cultural conduits that define each community by outlining the main tropes of the Modernist and Islamic worldviews. The article thus attempts to suggest an alternative engagement between Islam and the West that emphasizes convergence over conflict.
Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, 2nd ed.
Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West. Second Edition, edited by R. Tottoli (with introduction, pp. 1-18, London – New York, Routledge, 2022, xv + 558 pp., 2022
With new topics and contributions, this updated second edition discusses the history and contemporary presence of Islam in Europe and America. The book debates the relevance and multifaceted participation of Muslims in the dynamics of Western societies, challenging the changing perception on both sides. Collating over 30 chapters, written by experts from around the world, the volume presents a wide range of perspectives. Case studies from the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between the Middle Ages and the modern age set off the Handbook, along with an outline of Muslims in America up to the twentieth century. The second part covers concepts around new conditions in terms of consolidating identities, the emergence of new Muslim actors, the appearance of institutions and institutional attitudes, the effects of Islamic presence on the arts and landscapes of the West, and the relational dynamics like ethics and gender. Exploring the influence of Islam, particularly its impact on society, culture and politics, this interdisciplinary volume is a key resource for policymakers, academics and students interested in the history of Islam, religion and the contemporary relationship between Islam and the West.
Muslims and Secularism: Some Contributions to the Debate
Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 2022
This essay explores the debate among Muslims about whether Islam can be authentically itself without control of the state in the name of Islam. A range of Muslim voices are considered. Ali Abd al-Raziq (in the 1920s) and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im (in recent decades) offered quite different arguments for the compatibility of Islam with the secular state. In the mid-twentieth century, in contrast, Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi argued passionately against secularism as fundamentally opposed to Islam. More recently, Wael Hallaq and Ovamir Anjum have problematized the very concept of the modern nation-state, suggesting that Muslims should pursue distinctive Islamic forms of governance, with Anjum proposing a renewed form of the caliphate. The essay concludes with reflections on this debate from a Christian perspective.
Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West
Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, ed. R. Tottoli (introduction by R.Tottoli, pp. 1-15, London – New York, Routledge, 2015 [2014], xiii + 478 pp. , 2015
Islam has long been a part of the West in terms of religion, culture, politics and society. Discussing this interaction from al-Andalus to the present, this Handbook explores the influence Islam has had, and continues to exert; particularly its impact on host societies, culture and politics. Highlighting specific themes and topics in history and culture, chapters cover: European paradigms Muslims in the Americas Cultural interactions Islamic cultural contributions to the Western world Western contributions to Islam
Islam and Secularism: Where the Unlike Charges Repel
Ri’ayah: Jurnal Sosial dan Keagamaan , 2024
Since the advent of secularism in the middle-ages there exist a strong debate among Muslim scholars and thinkers on its compatibility with Islam. The proponents of secularism popularly known as secular Muslims upheld that Islam and secularism are two sides of the same coin because of their shared aspects while its opponents (the Islamists) uphold otherwise. This paper depends on convergence theory to argue that there are some similarities as well as differences between the two concepts. The study suitably adopted descriptive and comparative approaches of qualitative research to generate and analyze data. The study found that there are two types of secularism namely: the radical and moderate secularism. The radical secularism which is usually translated as "extremist" is characterized by hostile approaches to religion while the moderate secularism known as soft secularism acknowledges religious freedom, tolerance and pluralism which are all inherent in the Islamic world views. The major differences between the Islamic world views and that of the moderate secular views lie in the fact that Islam calls for humanity to embrace its faith (Da'awa) in spite its strong position on religious freedom and the Islamic concept of moderation (Wasatiyyah) which advocates upholding balance stance between two opposing extremes. On a final note the research recommends that Muslims should strongly uphold the Islamic teachings in their individual and societal lives alike.