So we begin Chapter 1 - Secular, Religious, Islamic.
A reminder this is not intended as a summary but a #readalong Sherman Jackson's Secular State. Just what strikes me as interesting
Catch the beginning at - x.com
A reminder this is not intended as a summary but a #readalong Sherman Jackson's Secular State. Just what strikes me as interesting
Catch the beginning at - x.com
Chap 1 - Secular, Religious, Islamic
Religious vs Secular
An idea, activity, or institution is invariably conceived of either secular or religious; rarely considered to be both. Islamic Secular questions this binary.
Religious vs Secular
An idea, activity, or institution is invariably conceived of either secular or religious; rarely considered to be both. Islamic Secular questions this binary.
The Secular
1. Secular is seen as predatory and expressive of a partial ideology, and consciously committed to a particular ordering of the world.
2. Muslims may dismiss “Islamic Secular” as naive and misguided, suspecting it promoting the secular’s predatory designs on Islam
3
1. Secular is seen as predatory and expressive of a partial ideology, and consciously committed to a particular ordering of the world.
2. Muslims may dismiss “Islamic Secular” as naive and misguided, suspecting it promoting the secular’s predatory designs on Islam
3
3. Understandable, given Western purchase on the meaning.
4. but he wishes to challenge that modern Western secular is only secular, and that we must map other kinds of secular on Western meaning alone, as if it alone is universal.
4. but he wishes to challenge that modern Western secular is only secular, and that we must map other kinds of secular on Western meaning alone, as if it alone is universal.
Some terms
A. secular - commitment to primacy of secular over religious placing public affairs in human with little if any recognition of God
B. Secularisation: process of secularism if pursued & state of affairs when realised ie privatization and removal of religion from state
A. secular - commitment to primacy of secular over religious placing public affairs in human with little if any recognition of God
B. Secularisation: process of secularism if pursued & state of affairs when realised ie privatization and removal of religion from state
Difference between WS and IS -
C. Western Secular - WS - flows from secular and secularization
D. Islamic Secular - IS - entails a commitment to Islam, and does not seek to control, restrict, or discipline religion, nor to augment itself at religion’s expense.
C. Western Secular - WS - flows from secular and secularization
D. Islamic Secular - IS - entails a commitment to Islam, and does not seek to control, restrict, or discipline religion, nor to augment itself at religion’s expense.
‘But, unlike their counterparts in the West, religiously committed Muslims showed little interest in putting Islam’s primacy up for negotiation. ‘
‘Ultimately, such a zero-sum perspective could only promote civilizational failure or civilizational schizophrenia: ‘
- Secularism imposed by secularizing elites trained in West &
- mimic what took as basis of West’s success.
the secular was also associated with tolerance
- By encouraging such associations, secularizing Muslim elites were, and still are, able to bolster their own legitimacy.
- mimic what took as basis of West’s success.
the secular was also associated with tolerance
- By encouraging such associations, secularizing Muslim elites were, and still are, able to bolster their own legitimacy.
'Without new meanings, associations, and possibilities successfully attaching to the word “secular,” thereby challenging its regnant Western connotations and entailments, this word will continue to do the work it presently does.'
Sherman Jackson establishes important distinction between two modes of the secular as it evolved in the West; “macro-” and “micro-” modes secular
2 modes of macro-secular
either a) seeking to eradicate religion from human life or relying on secularizing momentum of social, intellectual, historical or economic forces to usher it out of existence.
either a) seeking to eradicate religion from human life or relying on secularizing momentum of social, intellectual, historical or economic forces to usher it out of existence.
b) result of a process ‘disenchantment’ which the world is emptied of these [spiritual] forces, which is facilitated by such developments as modern science and the spread of logical positivism.
Islam never produced a macro-secular, at least not as a consciously promoted ideological platform.
a) Prophet’s mission may be described as including an effort at disenchantment (supersition). But never intended to result in any decrease in belief in God or in religiosity
a) Prophet’s mission may be described as including an effort at disenchantment (supersition). But never intended to result in any decrease in belief in God or in religiosity
b) Even with distinction between al-dunya and hereafter - the dunya was considered a farm for the Hereafter. Hence, al-dunyā is neither the categorical opposite of dīn nor an expression of the macro-secular.
Muslims scoff at secularism because of macro-secular which remains dominant understanding of secular today.
But it's not only mode of secularism, enter micro-secular a different mode.
But it's not only mode of secularism, enter micro-secular a different mode.
Micro-mode secular - not reject the presence of supernatural powers, question the existence of God, or challenge the propriety of religion per se.
It focuses on the the extent to which humans are bound by what God says.
Micro-secular assumes the jurisdictional scope is limited.
But even if law is limited, all activity under the domain of God, an overarching ‘sacred canopy’’ or totalizing adjudicative gaze of God.
Micro-secular assumes the jurisdictional scope is limited.
But even if law is limited, all activity under the domain of God, an overarching ‘sacred canopy’’ or totalizing adjudicative gaze of God.
Differentiation
The ancient world - all is one - no separation of domains between secular and religious.
Modernity - As knowledge have increased, and increasingly sophisticated, different spheres have emerged of which religion has little or nothing to say.
The ancient world - all is one - no separation of domains between secular and religious.
Modernity - As knowledge have increased, and increasingly sophisticated, different spheres have emerged of which religion has little or nothing to say.
Islamic Law always considered to be part of general affairs including governance. Additionally, a general impulse to expand scope of law.
But end of 4/10 cent boundaries were placed for sharia.
Yet to place them beyond the limits of sharia does not mean outside notice of Islam.
But end of 4/10 cent boundaries were placed for sharia.
Yet to place them beyond the limits of sharia does not mean outside notice of Islam.
'The Islamic Secular is a species of micro-secular.'
Difference between western micro-secular and Islamic micro-secular is that ‘Islamic Secular constitutes a “religious secular.’
- Western secular differentiated away from religious
- Islam is not directed from religion but from sharia directives (islamic law)
- Western secular differentiated away from religious
- Islam is not directed from religion but from sharia directives (islamic law)
- 'micro-secular has a credible claim to being the original form of the secular, even in the West, rendering not it but the macro-secular the aberration'
- No one can say therefore Islamic secular is not a contradiction in terms
- No one can say therefore Islamic secular is not a contradiction in terms
‘In effect, this conscious awareness of the divine presence and gaze renders the whole of life religious. And from this perspective, there are no “areas free from religion.”
Sherman Jackson -
What is Islam, from what it is not?
a) One can both be Islamic and be wrong, the effort is Islamic while the result, ie. the substance is not.
What is Islam, from what it is not?
a) One can both be Islamic and be wrong, the effort is Islamic while the result, ie. the substance is not.
Must distinguish between Islamic vs what is Islam
a) may be many candidates from Islam as lived reality
b) Many candidates not be consisted with religion-as-doctrine-practice but gain admission as communal concerns.
c) Some will fail.
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a) may be many candidates from Islam as lived reality
b) Many candidates not be consisted with religion-as-doctrine-practice but gain admission as communal concerns.
c) Some will fail.
...
d) All will be accepted as Islamic, even if fail as normative expressions of Islam
e.g Ibn Taymīyah casts as “islāmīyūn” Muslim thinkers who took over from the Greek followers of Aristotle views he himself flatly condemned as contravening the shar‘
e.g Ibn Taymīyah casts as “islāmīyūn” Muslim thinkers who took over from the Greek followers of Aristotle views he himself flatly condemned as contravening the shar‘
- Ideas & commitment within parameters of permissible with sufficient communal support *become* concrete & normative even if not universal & transcendent
- community is determinative, ie normative lived reality only what muslims say it is with right reason with due process
- community is determinative, ie normative lived reality only what muslims say it is with right reason with due process
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