Socialization of Islam or Islamization of Society – Islam as a Context of Normative Order in the Islamic Public of al-Manār (1898-1938)
The journal al-Manār, published in Cairo between 1898 and 1939, is regarded as the mouthpiece of Islamic reformism, aiming at a ‘reconciliation of Islam and modernity’. This description remains rather vague, as ‘Islam’ often stands for ‘tradition’ or is understood as ‘a religion that is more than just religion’, whereas modernity is associated with certain (allegedly Western/European) norms and institutions (democracy, free science, gender equality).
This project aims at a more systematic ascertainment of the process of Islamic reformism mapped in al-Mānar. This process is set within broader developments of cultural history, as the constitutive normative orders of modernity, religion and society also formed the central notions of social order in the Islamic world from the end of the 19th century onwards.
Our assumption is that the authors of al-Manār observe society from a religious point of view. The working hypotheses, following this assumption, is that Islam was first identified with the dominant order of society (‘socializiation of Islam’), then was increasingly formulated as an autonomous order whose theological norms claimed validity over society (‘Islamization of society’).
Another possible reading, suggested by our analyses so far and requiring further scrutiny, is the indication of al-Manār’s authors occasionally adopting a societal standpoint from which they observe and direct claims towards religion. This would make them reformers not because they ‘combine religion and modernity’ but because of them switching between a religious and a societal standpoint – with the goal of making both orders, religion and society, fertile for the aspired Islamic modernity.
Methodologically, the project sets out with a compilation of defining statements concerning the central concepts ‘religion’ and ‘society’. The theoretical framework draws on Charles Taylor’s (Canadian philosopher, born 1931) concept of ‘the immanent frame’, José Casanova’s (Spanish-US sociologist of religion, born 1951) analysis of religious traditions entering secularity in different ways and Niklas Luhmann’s (German sociologist, 1927–1998) observation of the reciprocal observation and constitution of religion and society.
In order to better understand the cultural and intellectual process mirrorred in al-Manār and situate them in broader developments of modernity, statements of European theologians and sociologists of the 19th and early 20th centuries serve as hermeneutical instrument.
