The Islamic Secular

The basic point of the secular in the modern West is to "liberate" certain pursuits--the state, the economy, science--from the authority of religion. This is also assumed to be the goal and meaning of "secular" in Islam. Sherman Jackson argues, however, that that assumption is wrong. In Islam the "secular" was neither outside "religion" nor a rival to it. "Religion," in Islam was not identical to Islam's "sacred law," or "shari'ah." Nor did classical Muslim jurists see shari'ah as the all-encompassing, exclusive means of determining what is "Islamic." In fact, while, as religion, Islam's jurisdiction was unlimited, shari'ah's jurisdiction, as a sacred law, was limited. In other words, while everything remained within the purview of the divine gaze of the God of Islam, not everything could be determined by shari'ah or on the basis of its revelatory sources. Various aspects of state-policy, the economy, science, and the like were "differentiated," from shari'ah and its revelatory sources, without becoming non-religious or un-Islamic. Given the asymmetry between the circumference of shari'ah and that of Islam as religion, not everything that fell outside the former fell outside the latter. In other words, an idea or action could be non-shar'i (not dictated by shari'ah) without being non-Islamic, let alone anti-Islam. The ideas and actions that fall into this category are what Jackson terms "the Islamic Secular." Crucially, the Islamic Secular differs from the Western secular in that, while the whole point of the Western secular is to liberate various pursuits from religion, the Islamic Secular differentiates these disciplines not from religion but simply from shari'ah. Similarly, while both secularization and secularism play key roles in the Western secular, both of these concepts are alien to the Islamic Secular, as the Islamic Secular seeks neither to discipline nor to displace religion, nor expand to its own jurisdiction at religion's expense. The Islamic Secular is a complement to religion, in effect, a "religious secular." Nowhere are the practical implications of this more impactful than in Islam's relationship with the modern state. In this book, Jackson makes the case for the Islamic Secular on the basis of Islam's own pre-modern juristic tradition and shows how the Islamic Secular impacts the relationship between Islam and the modern state, including the Islamic State. Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Nemesis of Language Divine Law and Sharī‘ah Islamic Studies 2.0 The Chapters Part I: The Conceptual Landscape 1. Secular, Religious, Islamic Basic Lay of the Land The Secular The Secular in Historical Perspective The Secular: Macro- and Micro-Modes Differentiation Between the Non-Shar‘ī and the Non-Religious The Religious Religion As Subject and Object Of Definitions and Usages “Religion” and “Dīn” The Islamic Secular’s Religion The Islamic “Muslim” versus “Islamic” “Islamic” and My Evolutionary Turn Marshall Hodgson Shahab Ahmed 2. Islam, Fiqh, the Ḥukm Shar‘ī, and the Differentiated Realm Between “Bad” and “Juristically Proscribed” Beyond the Ḥukm Shar‘ī The Standard View The Bounded Ḥukm Shar‘ī Islamic Law: Sharī‘ah, Fiqh, Madhhab Of Horizontal and Vertical Boundaries Early Proponents of an Unbounded Sharī‘ah The Emergence of the Theoretical Foundations of a Bounded Sharī‘ah The Theoretical Consummation of a Bounded Sharī‘ah Modern Continuities and Discontinuities Misrecognizing the Bounded Nature of Sharī‘ah Sharī‘ah Minimalism and Maximalism Ibn Ḥazm and the Ẓāhirī Project The Sharī‘ah-Maximalism of Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn Taymīyah Ibn al-Qayyim Ibn Taymīyah 3. The Islamic Secular Between Divine Sovereignty and Divine Communication Islām Mā Warā’ al-Ḥukm al-Shar‘ī Islamic Law Beyond Sharī‘ah The Dystopian Narrative of Islamic Law Sharī‘ah and “Islamic Law” Siyāsah Maẓālim Ḥisbah The Islamic Secular: “Beyond the Law” Nomos and Plausibility Structure Efficient Decision-Making The Islamic Secular versus Ijtihād The “Islamic” in the Islamic Secular Coda: The Islamic Secular and the Challenge of Talal Asad The Asadian Frame The Asadian Challenge The Islamic Secular’s Response Has Islam Become a Religion? Part II: The Islamic Secular, Modernity, and the Modern State 4. The Islamic Secular and the Impossible State Basic Anatomy The Impossible State Avoiding Distortions and Straw Men What Hallaq Is Not Saying Hallaq and the Modern State Provenance Sovereignty and Law Violence, Sacrifice, Bureaucracy, Culture Sharī‘ah between Hallaq and the Islamic Secular Reason and Islamic Law The Curse of Modernity Al-Ḥusn wa al-Qubḥ al-‘Aqlīyān Morality vs. Shar‘ Is vs. Ought Back to Reason The Islamic Secular and the Islamic State Shar‘ī vs. Non-Shar‘ī: Law vs. Fact Islamic Governance between Discretion and Juristic Law The Promise and Threat of Discretionary Authority The Authority of the Islamic Secular 5. The Islamic Secular and the Secular State Basic Anatomy The Islamic State, Secularism, and An-Na‘im’s Secular State The Basic Aim of the Present Analysis and Critique Two Necessary Digressions The Purity of Religiosity Human Rights The Na‘imian Secular State: Substantive Details The Alchemy of the Secular History The Wages of Rational Certainty: Khilāf, Sui Juris, and “Decreed by God” Undifferentiated Religion and An-Na‘im’s Secular The Nemesis of Neutrality Non-Muslims: Islam-cum-Sharī‘ah between the Modern State and the Empire-State Al-Shāfi‘ī, Mālik, Ḥanafīs, and the Early Period The Post-Formative Scene The Empire-State between Sharī‘ah and the Islamic Secular The Secular State and the Islamic Secular 6. The Islamic Secular and Liberal Citizenship Basic Anatomy March’s Framing and Its Implications Rawls, March, and the Basic Question Rawls The Rawlsian March and the Marchian Rawls The Marchian Challenge Islam and Comprehensive Doctrines: Between March and Rawls The Primacy of Public Reason March’s Response to the Challenge of Islam and Liberal Citizenship Conjecture and Islam’s Ostensible Default Position Liberal Citizenship between March and the Islamic Secular March on Islam’s Response to His Four-Part Criterion Residence Loyalty Pluralism and Solidarity Islam, Liberalism, and American Democracy: An Alternate Approach Standing Where I Sit Race Religion Politics The US Constitution between Sharī‘ah and the Islamic Secular Protecting the Protection Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index "This book argues that the common notion of a fundamental conflict between the secular and the religious cannot be applied to Islam. This is not because Islam rejects the secular in favor of the religious; it is because Islam's concept of the religious includes the secular. This is what is captured by the term "Islamic Secular." Contrary both to the notion that "religion" in Islam equals "sharī'ah," and to the concomitant notion that sharī'ah is the all-encompassing, exclusive metric of assessment in Islam, this book argues that, while Islam is all-encompassing, sharī'ah is bounded. This leaves a space between the limited circumference of sharī'ah and the unlimited circumference of Islam. While both spaces are "religious" in that they come under the adjudicative gaze of the God of Islam, only the shar'ī space draws directly upon sharī'ah and its sources, while the non-shar'ī space does not. In the end, this allows for a "religious secular," a space wherein matters remain "religious" but are not based on or assessed in terms of the content of sharī'ah or its sources. These shar'ī and non-shar'ī elements are not rivals but complements. As such, both "secularism" and "secularization," as non- or anti-religious tropes, are alien to the Islamic Secular"-- Provided by publisher