Rethinking Postsecularism in Islamic Contexts: A Critical Assessment of Habermas’s Perspective
Keywords:
Habermas, Islam, Pluralism, Postsecularism, SecularismAbstract
Secularism as an important concept shaped modern society. It emphasized on the separation of religion and state. The resurgence of religion in public sphere has sparked scholarly interest in the idea of postsecularism. Habermas’ works will provide definitional clarity for this essay. Postsecularism and Islam has been studied from diverse perspectives by scholars like Pasha (2012), Mavelli (2012) and Byrd (2017). This essay asserts that ‘postsecularism’ cannot be applied to Islam, because of the inherent nature of the religion which cannot distinguish between sacred and profane. Core values of secularism such as pluralism and religious freedom may align with Islam but the practice of secularism in Islamic countries (Muslim majority, not necessarily following Shariah) is varied and inconsistent. After defining secular, secularization and secularism, works of Muslim intellectuals are discussed. Then the compatibility of Islam with postsecularism is studied by comparing Habermas’s idea of postsecularism with practices in Islamic countries. Whether Islam can fulfil the expectations Habermas has from religions by using the Quranic text will be analysed. Four countries and three key principles of Habermas have been employed here. Implications of postsecularism in the Islamic world as those discussed by Byrd (2017) will not be discussed, as the focus is on determining the existence of postsecularity. Though the essay has employed Asad’s differentiation of the terms secular and secularism but postsecular/postsecularism/postsecularist have been used synonymously.
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