Public Islam and the Common Good

Abstract

The article discusses the historical and contemporary emergence of a sense of an Islamic public in a variety of Muslim majority societies and elsewhere. These manifestations of "public Islam" facilitate discussions concerning how to define the common good, equitable solutions to collective problems, shifting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, and practices that encourage the emergence of a "public" Islam. Compared to notions of public sphere developed within Western social theory, the article shows that the public sphere is no prerogative of Western modern societies nor of democratic political systems. The study demonstrates that also semi-formal and informal articulations of Muslim identities can facilitate the emergence of public, and therefore accountable, forms of Islam.