The Politicization of Sacred Texts

Formulation of the Claim

The politicization of modern Islam turns sacred texts into instruments of legitimation.

Explanation

Arkoun holds that the entanglement of state and religion alters the function of the sacred: it no longer remains solely a domain of guidance and spiritual direction, but becomes a means of justifying social and political choices. At that point, texts are read within the logic of power, rather than as religious discourse open to understanding and critique.

This transformation takes on a clearer meaning in the context of modern Islam, where sanctity is invested in order to confer legitimacy on positions and institutions. The question of texts, therefore, is no longer separate from the conditions of their circulation and use in the public sphere.

Its Place in the Book’s Argument

This atom falls within Arkoun’s critique of the ambiguous relationship between religion and politics, and it is close to his theses concerning the need to reconsider ways of reading texts within social and cultural history. The point is not to impugn the text, but to reveal how it is transferred from the status of spiritual reference to that of ideological instrument.

Limits of the Claim

This atom does not mean that every political presence of religion is categorically rejected, nor that it reduces sacred texts to their political dimension alone. Nor should it be understood as a general judgment on all forms of religiosity, but rather on a particular use of the sacred in the modern context.

Brief Evidence

«## Page 518 By them we mean the emergence of civilizational heroes within different peoples, nations, social groups, and classes. The heroes who found civilizations, inaugurate them, or provide them with their point of departure—but the Prophet is distinguished from these heroes by the tools he uses and the psychological springs he sets in motion. I mean by this that he relies on the complex phenomenon called “revelation,” and arouses in the community the missionary hope of final salvific deliverance in a world after death. This is something that other great figures cannot do. But if we suspend the theological determinations imposed with respect to these concepts, then we can easily incorporate the logic that leads to»

Nearby Links

• Where Is Contemporary Islamic Thought?
• Fundamentalist Thought and the Impossibility of Foundation
• Islamic Thought: Critique and Ijtihad