Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern 

Science: Islam, China, and the West, 2d ed. (London: 

Cambridge University Press, 2003); Roshdi Rashed, ed., 

Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (London: 

Routledge, 1996); A. I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomy and 

Logic: Studies in Arabic Science and Philosophy (Hamp-

shire, England: Variorum, 1994).

secularism

Secularism denotes a relationship between religion 

and the state born out of modern Anglo-Atlan-

tic conceptions of social, religious and political 

aUthority

. Although it has become a prominent 

political idea worldwide, it is important to note 

that secularism is rooted in a particular context 

and reflects both the theological developments 

and the predominance of a scientific outlook 

toward political, economic, and social organiza-

tion that developed in medieval, Renaissance, and 

Enlightenment  e

Urope

. Thus, while secularism 

has made its way into political and religious ideas 

across the world, its exact meaning in those differ-

ent contexts is sometimes difficult to discern.

There are two dominant models and under-

standings of secularism in contemporary Western 

European and North American societies. One, the 

strict disestablishment of religion, is found in the 

U

nited

 s

tates

 and stresses that the state may not 

ally itself with any particular religious tradition. 

In this case, it is important to note, however, that 

individual decisions made by the government 

often reflect the tradition in which most law- and 

policymakers have been shaped, namely, Christi-

anity. The second model, found in particular in 

France and t

Urkey

, is often called laicism. In it, 

the state oversees and regulates religion, working 

to enforce a privatized understanding of religion, 

thus removing religion from public visibility. 

These two models reflect the history of the differ-

ent rationales for secularism: on the one hand, the 

protection of religion from the hands of the state 

and, on the other hand, the protection of the state 

from the hands of religion.

During the 19th century and into the 20th 

century, colonized societies in the Middle East and 

South Asia began to grapple with the issue of sec-

ularism, often as a result of legal, economic, and 

political reforms instituted by colonial authorities 

and sympathetic local elites. Vigorous debates 

surrounded the effects of these secular reforms, 

debates that had a tremendous influence on the 

character of modern states that emerged from 

colonial control in the early to mid-20th century, 

such 

as

 s

yria

, i

raq

, e

gypt

, and i

ndia

.

Many of the conflicts that have racked these 

states since independence, from the partition 

of India/p

akistan

 to conflicts between Islamists 

and both nominally secular and self-consciously 

Islamic states throughout the Middle East, have 

resulted in part from disagreements about the 

proper role of religion—in general or in regard to 

specific traditions—in the public sphere. Today, 

many opponents of secularism stress the historic 

particularity of secularism’s origins, thus raising 

questions about the portability of the idea from 

its original context, dominated by Christian-

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