Secularism confronts Islam
By: Olivier Roy ; translated by George Holoch.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 144
ISBN-13: 9780231141024; 9780231511797
Subjects: Islam -- France; Islam and secularism -- France; Islam and state -- France; Laicism -- France; Fundamentalism -- France
Work titles: Laïcité face à l'islam.
Description: "The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French - and, consequently, secular and liberal - society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining their identities as "true believers." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society." "Roy's rare portrait of the realities of immigrant Muslim life offers a necessary alternative to the popular specter of an "Islamic threat." Supporting his arguments with his extensive research on Islamic history, sociology, and politics, Roy demonstrates the limits of our understanding of contemporary Islamic religious practice in the West and the role of Islam as a screen onto which Western societies project their own identity crisis."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: laïcité and the identity of France; title: French laïcité and Islam: which is the exception?; title: Islam and secularization; title: The crisis of the secular state and the new forms of religiosity; title: De facto secularization.