The Islamic Secular: Comments

Professor Sherman A. Jackson, an authority on Islamic legal and intellectual history, has claimed in this article that a particular form of the secular is internal to Islam. For him, the secular is primarily a manifestation of the differentiation of spheres of human life. The Islamic secular, he ar...

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Autor principal: Humeira Iqtidar
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2017
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/13d3456e04c34a55befce838a816130c
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:13d3456e04c34a55befce838a816130c2021-12-02T19:23:08ZThe Islamic Secular: Comments10.35632/ajis.v34i2.7652690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/13d3456e04c34a55befce838a816130c2017-04-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/765https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 Professor Sherman A. Jackson, an authority on Islamic legal and intellectual history, has claimed in this article that a particular form of the secular is internal to Islam. For him, the secular is primarily a manifestation of the differentiation of spheres of human life. The Islamic secular, he argues, is revealed through a close reading of the boundaries that the Sharia self-imposes upon its jurisdiction and that implicitly operationalizes a type of differentiation. His argument rests upon a distinction between Sharia and the wider religion of Islam. This allows him to claim that the Sharia’s self-limitation supported a recognition of other modes of reasoning and argumentation within Islam, and that it is this space of non-Sharia reasoning that constitutes the space of the secular within Islam. Arguing for such a relationship between Sharia and the secular, then, leads him to point out that the distinction between the Islamic and the Western seculars lays not so much in the substance, but in their function. In other words, substantively both versions of the secular seem to support rational, empirical thought; however, in the case of Islam, the function of the secular is not to reduce of religion. Humeira IqtidarInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 34, Iss 2 (2017)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Islam
BP1-253
spellingShingle Islam
BP1-253
Humeira Iqtidar
The Islamic Secular: Comments
description Professor Sherman A. Jackson, an authority on Islamic legal and intellectual history, has claimed in this article that a particular form of the secular is internal to Islam. For him, the secular is primarily a manifestation of the differentiation of spheres of human life. The Islamic secular, he argues, is revealed through a close reading of the boundaries that the Sharia self-imposes upon its jurisdiction and that implicitly operationalizes a type of differentiation. His argument rests upon a distinction between Sharia and the wider religion of Islam. This allows him to claim that the Sharia’s self-limitation supported a recognition of other modes of reasoning and argumentation within Islam, and that it is this space of non-Sharia reasoning that constitutes the space of the secular within Islam. Arguing for such a relationship between Sharia and the secular, then, leads him to point out that the distinction between the Islamic and the Western seculars lays not so much in the substance, but in their function. In other words, substantively both versions of the secular seem to support rational, empirical thought; however, in the case of Islam, the function of the secular is not to reduce of religion.
format article
author Humeira Iqtidar
author_facet Humeira Iqtidar
author_sort Humeira Iqtidar
title The Islamic Secular: Comments
title_short The Islamic Secular: Comments
title_full The Islamic Secular: Comments
title_fullStr The Islamic Secular: Comments
title_full_unstemmed The Islamic Secular: Comments
title_sort islamic secular: comments
publisher International Institute of Islamic Thought
publishDate 2017
url https://doaj.org/article/13d3456e04c34a55befce838a816130c
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