Secularism and modernity: alienation and the renewal of values in political Islam

Abstract

In recent years, the West and Islam have often been characterized as polar opposites. The secularism of the West is seen as modern and forward‐looking, whereas Islamic ideas have been portrayed as idealizing a fossilized past and unresponsive to change. Such depictions reduce a complex relationship between the West and Islam to a cartoon‐like “clash of civilizations” and ignore the convergences and divergences between them and the extent to which each responds to questions the other raises. This article explores the modern account of secularism as it emerges in the work of John Locke and reads it through the writings of an earlier generation of Islamic liberal reformers and Sayyid Qutb, a leading thinker in political Islam, in an attempt to complicate the discourses of both the secular and the modern. The article focuses on Qutb’s diagnosis of the alienation engendered in the modern world by secular reforms and his arguments for a renewal based on a distinctive Islamic identity. In doing so, it aims to co...