Nader Hashemi

Rethinking religion and political legitimacy across the Islam–West divide

The relationship between religion and politics is a bone of political contention and a source of deep confusion across the Islam–West divide. When most western liberals cast their gaze on Muslim societies today, what they see is deeply disconcerting. From their perspective there is simply too much religion in public life in the Arab-Islamic world, which raises serious questions for them about the prospects for democracy in this part of the world. This article critically explores the relationship between religion and political legitimacy with a geographical and cultural focus on the Muslim Middle East. The broad historical question that shapes this inquiry is: Why is religion a source of political legitimacy in Muslim societies today while in the West, broadly speaking, religion is a source of disagreement and illegitimacy?

The multiple histories of secularism Muslim societies in comparison

This article is intended to advance conceptual clarity on the topic of secularism in Muslim societies. It seeks to uncover unique historical developments that have influenced and shaped debate on this topic. In the first part, a distinction is made between the different social scientific categories of secularism, focusing on the philosophical, sociological and political dimensions of secularism. The second section provides a broad overview of the different histories of political secularism, and focuses on the two dominant models that have been bequeathed to us from the Western tradition of political thought: Anglo-American secularism and French secularism (laïcité). In the final section, the political history of Muslim societies is briefly explored with the goal of providing a tentative answer to the question: historically, why did political secularism not emerge in Muslim societies?

Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies: Rethinking the Relationship between Islam and Secularism across the Islam-West Divide

It is now a standard cliche that Islam does not recognize the concept of secularity. Normatively, we are told, that among the world’s religious traditions Islam is uniquely anti-modern in that it (allegedly) contains within its religious and civilizational ethos an attitude that rejects the separation of religion and politics thus making the development of liberal democracy difficult. The most influential and widely cited proponent of this thesis in the social sciences has been Bernard Lewis, the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. Lewis’ thesis is based on a comparative treatment of Islam and Christianity and is rooted in the claim that Islam’s problem with secularism is due “to certain profound differences in belief and experience in the two religious cultures.” This chapter seeks to provide an alternative reading to the Lewis thesis on the question of Islam and secularism. While previous critics of Lewis have argued that he has misread Islamic history, where evidence of a de facto secularity can be detected in early Muslim polities, it will be argued that Lewis has significantly misread – less the political history of Islam – and more the political history of Christendom. Jettisoning an explanation that emphasises the early religious experience of Islam/Christianity to explain the absence/rise of secularism, in this chapter the stress will be placed on the early modern period of Europe. It was during this time that political secularism – as understood today in the Anglo-American tradition – has its true origins. The central claim of this chapter is that historically, secularism did not develop in Muslim societies because unlike in Latin Christendom – Muslims never had the need to think about secularism.