Open Access
Islam and Secular Modernity under Western Eyes:A Genealogy of a Constitutive Relationship
Loading...
License
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISBN
ISSN
1028-3625
Issue Date
Type of Publication
Keyword(s)
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
EUI RSCAS; 2008/05; Mediterranean Programme Series
Cite
BRACKE, Sarah, FADIL, Nadia, Islam and Secular Modernity under Western Eyes:A Genealogy of a Constitutive Relationship, EUI RSCAS, 2008/05, Mediterranean Programme Series - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/8102
Abstract
This paper considers the theoretical operations involved in sustaining secular modernity within the realm of social theory. It seeks to understand how the secular operates as an epistemological formation. We examine a set of arguments, considering them as sites of the (discursive) formation of secular modernity. Our inquiry is centred on Islam as a case-study. Its particular position as a double constitutive outsider to social theory, both in terms of a religious as well as a non-Western other, enables us to unpack hegemonic narratives that are constitutive for secular modernity. We examine two scholarly debates that touch upon a question of compatibility between Islam and modernity. In a first section of the paper we look at the sociological debate on the use of a Western concept of secularisation in relation to Islam, and in a second section we addresses a more recent cross-religious concept of 'fundamentalism' as a widely used and popular way to frame realities and developments deemed incompatible with modernity.