Islamism, secularization, secularity: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a phenomenon of a secular age

Abstract

The paper outlines parallels between the processes of secularization and secularity in the West, as interpreted by José Casanova and Charles Taylor, and Islamism as a modern social and political phenomenon. It focuses on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s history and ideas and specifically on a number of public documents detailing its social and political vision. I argue that if we define ‘secularization’ not only as the weakening of religious belief, but as the institutional differentiation of modern state structures and the marginalization of religion, and ‘secularity’ as the process whereby faith becomes one option among others and religion becomes an identifiable set of beliefs seen as guidelines for reform, the Brotherhood, similarly to other Islamist entities, is a phenomenon of a ‘secular age’.