Categories of Religion and the Secular in Islam

Description

The Categories of Religion and the Secular in Islam Research Network serves as a platform for scholars interested in critically examining the discursive categories of 'religion' and 'the secular/non-religious' within Islamic contexts. It aims to cultivate a sub-field at the intersection of Islamic Studies and critical theory in the Study of Religion.

The network provides an international forum for academics and graduate students from any discipline to engage in discussions and share their work on the thematic areas.

In the Study of Religion, a critical approach has emerged, which recognises 'religion' as a modern concept intrinsically linked to 'the secular' in the post-Enlightenment era (Asad 1993; Fitzgerald 2000). While significant research has been conducted on the invention of 'religion' in various colonial contexts, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and others (Chidester 1996; King 1999; Masuzawa 2005; Josephson 2012; Horii 2018), relatively few sustained studies have been undertaken for Islam. An early study by WC Smith (1964) identified a modern shift towards using 'Islam' as a reified category but considered it a special case. Classical formulations like 'din wa dunya' imply the existence of a distinction between religion and non-religion, potentially even from the inception. Although 'religion' may not have been wholesale invented in Islam as in other traditions, initial studies by Smith and Abdulkader Tayob (Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse, 2009) have revealed significant modern innovations within Muslim intellectual discourse. The purpose of the CRSI network is to create a space to foster this emerging field of study, encouraging interdisciplinary discussions that transcend regional boundaries and prompting a reevaluation of how 'religion' and related categories are conceptualised within historical and contemporary Islamic societies. The CRSI community includes scholars from diverse fields such as anthropology, history, philology, political science, and others who explore Muslim discourses and practices worldwide.

Key Research Questions:

1. To what extent is the category of 'religion' useful for analyzing Islamic Studies?
2. Did an Islam exist 'before religion' (Nongbri 2013)?
3. In what changing or diverse ways are the articulation, operationalization, institutionalization, or legislation of 'religion' as a bounded category of practice within Muslim communities observed?
4. How is a bounded category of 'religion' performed or expressed in popular or everyday Islam?
5. What distinctive characteristics and functions (e.g., rights, freedoms, authority, privatization) does 'religion' possess as a reified subject within Islamic discourse, distinguishing it from 'non-religious' or 'secular' domains?
6. How does 'religion' interact with other conceptual pairings such as 'the secular,' 'politics,' 'culture,' 'economics,' and so on?
7. Does a 'religion-secular' dichotomy implicitly or explicitly exist even in contexts where ideological secularism is considered un-Islamic?
8. Who is empowered or disempowered by new articulations of 'religion' in Islam?
9. What role have colonial, post-colonial, or Western states played in shaping Muslim (re)formulations of 'religion' and its counterparts?
10. Do similar trends of inventing 'religion' exist in Islamic contexts compared to other colonial contexts, or is Islam exceptional in some way?
11. What new methodologies can shed light on these dynamics?
12. What are the implications of critically studying 'religion' for the teaching of Islam in schools and universities?

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No, this infrastructure does not provide funding.

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University of Oxford
Oxford