Prof. Dr. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr

Research on secularity in non-Western regions where the predominant religions are not Christianity is often confronted with severe objections, making comparisons problematic. It is frequently argued that Islam and Hinduism are all-embracing ways of life (rather than compartmentalised “religions” in the Christian sense of the word), to which the distinction between “religion” and “the secular”, and related differentiations, do not apply. It is further argued that the history of Islam and its institutional structure is so different from the history of Christianity, that secularity and secularism are inadequate terms. It is sometimes even argued that “the religious-secular divide” has been imposed on non-Western regions, and thus it is the genealogy of this imposition and its consequences that need to be researched. It is clear that researching secularity with regard to Islam is a complex issue. Such research not only deals with the characteristics and developments of Islam as a “religion” in its immediate context, but also has to take into account diverse types of global encounter and entanglement, of imperialism, nation-state formation, missionary activities and colonial rule, including diverse forms of resistance. Some of the latter, opposing Western domination, have referred to Islam as an identitarian concept.

All this resonates in the present research on Islam, especially, but not only, in strands of research influenced by post-colonial and post-modern streams of thought. As secularity – conceptually and factually – is entrenched in the history of global encounters and Western domination, it is perceived by many as an utterly problematic concept for research on Islam. Other scholars focus on the ambiguous concurrence of religious and mundane practices and perspectives in Islam before the ‘purifying’ influences of Western colonialism and Islamist stringency. Even there, the question of distinctions and differentiation does not really fit the texture of early Islam, and only comes in with modernising projects.

In addition to these approaches, however, there is also research that points out distinctions that are inherent in Islamic theology (e.g. different types of law) as well as differentiations (e.g. between religion and politics) within the history of Islam. These include processes of secularisation and modernisation. Some have tried to narrate the history of Islam and the Islamicate world in parallel with the history of Christianity and the Western world, including the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

Furthermore, debates among intellectuals in Iran as well as in Arab countries, often against a background  of authoritarian religious regimes or the strong influence of clerics on political decisions and social life, raise the issue of secular-religious differentiation, of the separation between religion and politics, or between private life and piety on the one hand and religious doctrine on the other. They are, however, heavily attacked by others, who see secularism as being close to atheism and consider “comprehensive secularism” a destructive concept that needs to be rejected.

Taking Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Fields as the basis, this project aims to reconstruct the basic positions in the field of the study of Islam, their theoretical and social backgrounds, and their interrelatedness. The basic research question is how does research on Islam tread the path between political positions and reflections on the one hand, and classical scholarly interests on the other, and how is research on secularity in Islam affected by both.

The project focuses on 3 areas of research:

(1) The international debate, which is heavily influenced by American scholars, with  further significant impact from migrant scholars living in the US;

(2) The German situation with its long tradition of classical “Islamic Studies” or “Arab Studies”;

(3) Iran with a strong influence from political Islam, but also more recent debates arguing for the limitation of the role of religion.

In terms of methodology, the project involves (a) the analysis of scholarly texts and discussions in order to reconstruct the discursive structures of the intellectual debate; and (b) interviews with scholars who represent central positions in the field.