Meaning of the Concept in This Book
Secularization in this book is not a rejection of religion, but a reorganization of the relationship between the religious and the worldly while preserving the spiritual dimension. It is understood as a condition for protecting the public sphere from sectarianism and closure, without reducing it to a simple legal separation or to a direct transfer of the European model.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
Mohammed Arkoun uses the concept of secularization within a broader argument that links the critique of religion to intellectual liberation, not to the exclusion of the religious. The aim is not to replace faith with a logic opposed to it, but to reorder the public sphere so that ideology does not become a substitute for the spiritual, and so that critique does not remain confined to a form of slogan-driven rejection. For this reason, secularization here is connected to educational reform, historical critique, and reconsidering the relationship between modernity, rights, and religion.
How It Works within the Atlas
The concept appears within a network of closely related meanings: positive secularization, critical secularization, the distinction between religion and ideology, and the warning that Western secularization separated religion from politics only partially and did not settle spiritual values. The atlas also shows that Arkoun rejects reducing critique to secularization alone, and emphasizes that the concept requires a historical approach that takes context into account and avoids the literal transfer of models. In this sense, secularization functions in the atlas as a tool for understanding the tension between modernity and tradition, not as a ready-made solution or a complete model.
Related Pages
- Mohammed Arkoun
- Critical secularization reorganizes religion, modernity, and rights without reduction
- Critical secularization in Arkoun is broader than legal separation
- Secularization is not a rejection of religion
- Positive secularization protects the public sphere
- Secularization in Arkoun requires a historical approach and avoidance of the literal transfer of models