The New Secularism in the Muslim World

Across the Muslim world, religion and politics have become increasingly mixed in the past century, with devastating consequences. But there are signs that the ascendancy of political Islam may be coming to an end. In this context, the experience of Central Asia and Azerbaijan as Muslim-majority states that insist on secular laws, courts and education is a much-overlooked model that is bound to attract greater interest. THE NEW SECULARISM is the first study of the Central Asian model in the realm of the interaction of religion and the state, which examines its characteristics as well as how it relates to other frequently touted models in the Muslim world.

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center whose components are affiliated, respectively, with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He is the author or editor of eight books.

Introduction

1. The Problem:

State and Religion in the Muslim World

Is Islam the Problem?

Theological Context

Intellectual Currents in the Muslim World

The Intellectual Hegemony of Islamism

Implications of the Islamist Hegemony

Will Islamism Prevail?

2. The State and Religion:

Models of Interaction

The Emergence of Freedom of Conscience

and Separation of Church and State

Understandings of Secularism

Five Models

Between Ideal-Types and Reality

3. Religion in Central Asia and Azerbaijan

Central Asian Islam

Law and Creed: The Development of Islamic Theology

in Central Asia

Central Asian Sufism

Between Two Empires: Russian Rule, Ottoman Reforms,

and Emergence of Secular Intelligentsia

Soviet Rule and its Unexpected Consequences

4. Independence and the Religious Question

The Challenge of Statehood: Central Asia at Independence

The Challenge of Radical Islam

Challenges and Responses

5. Devil in the Detail:

Specific Challenges and Responses

Tajikistan: From Power-Sharing to Growing Restrictions

Uzbekistan: From Defensive to Proactive

Azerbaijan: Sunni-Shia Relations and "Multiculturalism"

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: The Limits of Openness

Turkmenistan

Similarities and Differences

6. Is There a Model?

Embracing Secularism

The Legal Basis

Traditional vs Novel Religion

Residual Soviet Thinking and the Primacy

of Security Structures

Doubling Down: Articulating Positive Agendas

Do Similarities a Model Make?

7. Central Asian Secularism

In Comparative Perspective

Turkey's Declining Secularism

Tunisia: The Domestication of Islamism?.

The Moderate Monarchies: Jordan, Morocco, the UAE

Incomplete Secularism: Laïcité in West Africa

Indonesia: Democracy in a Religious State

Conclusion

8. Looking Ahead