Modern but not secular: Religion, identity and theordre publicin the Arab Middle East

Abstract

Irrespective of long-ongoing processes of secularization in all fields of public and private life, the principle of secularity continues to be highly contested in the Arab Middle East. The reasons are both cultural and political. In the age of colonialism followed by authoritarianism and accelerated globalization, Islamists were able to project themselves as defenders of popular rights against foreign domination and despotic rule, and to mobilize broad sections of the populace in the name of religion (i.e. Islam). In the Arab Middle East as in other parts of the Muslim world, it is not so much the relation between ‘state’ and ‘church’ that shapes the configuration of secularity, but rather the relation between the ordre public and Sharia, or ‘Islamic references’ more generally. By putting the debate into a broader historical framework this article also contributes to the debates on multiple modernities and multiple secularities.