Säkularität, Islam und die Grenzen der Öffentlichkeit in Europa

Abstract

This study analyses Islam's presence in Europe in the context of the formation of the »secular« and of the resulting spaces and limits of public participation. First, the study summarizes a contemporary debate on the nature of secularity in Europe. Second, it links this debate with reflections from the epoch of the »radical Enlightenment, during which European thinkers first attempted to confront the question of the relationship between the modern state and the confessional belonging of citizens. Finally, it defines the limits of the public participation of Muslim actors which result from the established forms of secularity in Europe. The study shows that the present chances for a public presence of Islam in Europe depend on the uncertainties inherited from the crystallization of secularity in a first Christian and then post-Christian environment: a process characterized by permanent shifts between »religion« and »politics« rather than by a stable configuration of their institutional and constitutional separation.