Islam and secularism

The definition and application of secularism, especially the place of religion in society, varies among Muslim countries as it does among western countries. Secularism is often used to describe the separation of public life and civil/government matters from religious teachings and commandments, or simply the separation of religion and politics. Secularism in Muslim countries is often contrasted with Islamism, and secularists tend to seek to promote secular political and social values as opposed to Islamic ones. Among western scholars and Muslim intellectuals, there are some debates over secularism which include the understanding of political and religious authorities in the Islamic world and the means and degree of application of sharia in legal system of the state.

As the concept of secularism varies among secularists in the Muslim world, reactions of Muslim intellectuals to the pressure of secularization also varies. On the one hand, secularism is condemned by some Muslim intellectuals who do not feel that religious influence should be removed from the public sphere. On the other hand, secularism is claimed by others to be compatible with Islam. For example, the quest for secularism has inspired some Muslim scholars who argue that secular government is the best way to observe sharia; "enforcing [sharia] through coercive power of the state negates its religious nature, because Muslims would be observing the law of the state and not freely performing their religious obligation as Muslims" says Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, a professor of law at Emory University and author of Islam and the secular state : negotiating the future of Shariʻa. Moreover, some scholars argue that secular states have existed in the Muslim world since the Middle Ages.

Nevertheless, many Muslim-majority countries define themselves as or are regarded as secular, and many of them have a dual system in which Muslims can bring familial and financial disputes to sharia courts. The exact jurisdiction of these courts varies from country to country, but usually includes marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship.

The etymology of the Arabic word for secularism can be controversial in itself. Some scholars pointed out that originally there was no Arabic term to describe the secular and secularism and therefore some neologisms were spawned. Secularism was translated into Arabic either as "‘alamaniyah", which is derived from "‘alam (world or universe)", or as "‘ilmaniyah", which is derived from "‘ilm (science or knowledge)". The term "‘alamaniyah" first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century in the dictionary Muhit al-Muhit written by the Christian Lebanese scholar Butrus al-Bustani. It has been suggested that the use of other translations, such as "la diniyah (non-religious)", that implied the exclusion or marginalisation of religion, would have met with outright rejection by Muslims, for whom (according to the principle al-Islam din wa-dawlah, Islam is religion and state) the division between the temporal and the spiritual is literally unthinkable.

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