Secularism in the Arab world : contexts, ideas and consequences / Aziz al-Azmeh ; English translation, David Bond.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh's seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated and criticised for its reflections on Arab secularisation and secularism in the modern history of the Arab World, it is the only study to date to approach its subject as a set of historical changes which affected the regulation of the social, political and cultural order, and which permeated the concrete workings of society, rather than as an ideological discussion framed from the outset by the assumed opposition between Islam and secularism. The author takes a comprehensive analytical perspective to show that an almost imperceptible yet real, multi-faceted and objective secularising process has been underway in the Arab world since the 1850s. The early onset was the result of adapting to systemic novelties introduced at the time and a reaction to the perceived European advance and local retardation. The need for meaningful reform, and the actions taken in order to put in place a new organisation of state and society based on modern organisational and educational criteria, rather than older, religious traditions, stemmed from the perceived weakness of Arab polities and from an internal drive to overcome this situation. The book follows these themes into the close of the 20th century, marked with the rise of Islamism. A preface to the English translation takes a retrospective look at the theme from the vantage point of social, political and intellectual issues of relevance today.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed April 7, 2020).

Foreword by Gilbert Achcar; Preface to the English Translation; 1. 1992-2018; 2. Negative authority; 3. Keywords: vitalism, historism; 4. Secularism and the sociology of fate; 5 One postcolonialist standard; Preface to the second edition; Introduction; Chapter One: Religion and the world in historical perspective; 1. On the term 'secularism'; 2. Religion and public life in Christian commonwealths; 3. Islam and the world; Chapter Two: The reformist state and the universalist orientation; 1. The state and its society: education and secular culture; 2. The secularisation of daily life; 3. The state: from the millet to the secular state; Chapter Three: Intellectual transformations and elusive reconciliation; 1. Evolutionism and Salafism; 2. Translation and equivocation; 3. Explicit secularism and accord with reality; Chapter Four: Sites of secularism in the twentieth century; 1. Secular legislation and social dynamics; 2. Intellectual secularism and reformist retrogression; 3. Secularism and politics; Chapter Five: The nationalist era and the future besieged; 1. The flowering of secularism and its social dynamic; 2. State, religion and the beleaguered future; Chapter Six: Conclusion: Secularism today in the context of its adversaries; 1. The discourse of exceptionalism and its auxiliaries; 2. Islam, politics and society; 3. The context of secularism; Bibliography; Index.

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