Islam in the French sociology of religion

Abstract

This paper poses the question of the persistant absence today of a sociology of regligion of Islam, ans absence which coincides with tthe continuation of a lively orientalist tradition. This gap is alla the more intriguing if seen in the context of the history of sociology in France, and in particular the history of Durkheimism, which quicky established itself as a science of religious phenomena, but which tacitaly avoided the three Semitic monotheisms (Judaism, Christainty and Islam). In contrast the history of Indology and of the anthroplogy of ancient Greece shows clearly that the conjunction of sociological theory with the textual sciences coule be accomplished only in relation to civilization which are far from the West's own relgious core. It is possible then that Islam and the knowledge of it as a religion occurs within a blind spot (un impense) characteristeic of the history of ideas in nineteenth-century France in which Christiantity, and especially the religion of the Ancien Regime, Constitute an ever-present barrier to a clear vision. The scientific construction of Islam suffers from too close a proximity, or an absence of distance, with regard to French society's (problematic) religion.