Aims: participants will -be acquainted with a theoretical framework for analyzing the relation of religion and other social spheres - be able to state major characteristics of secularity in Arab countries, Turkey and Iran - be familiar with debates on the relation of Islam and secularism/secularity and able to position themselves in these debates - have reflected questions of universality and particularity - have gained additional experience in academic presentation and discussion close

By ‘secularity’ we in this course understand the conceptual distinction and structural differentiation of religion from other social spheres, e.g., politics, economics, science. In modernity, secularity has come to shape societies globally, including Near Eastern societies. We will in this course attend first to structural processes and arrangements of differentiations in selected Arab countries and Turkey. We will then turn to conceptual distinctions that were formulated in view of the structural conditions of secularity. In this regard, we will focus on Islamic intellectuals, but also include Christian thinkers and secular politicians. It will become evident that while the majority of Islamic intellectuals refutes secularism, i.e., the increased separation of religion and its respective other, they, too, operate with an underlying distinction of secularity, also when arguing for greater connections. We will focus on the time from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, as that time in which structures of secularity were established and basic conceptions formulated. We will, however, attend also to more recent and contemporary elaborations of secularity and will address classical historical moments and sources insofar as these were appropriated as references for conceptualizing secularity in modern times. close