Articles tagged as "Secular"

Religious Expression or Female Oppression?

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In the wake of France’s total ban on the burqa or full-length veil, which took effect last month, on April 11th, it is an appropriate time to address the Islamic interpretation of the headscarf and its significance for Muslims. Scholars of religion inevitably get nervous when they are asked to speak about “the” interpretation of anything. So I propose to draw on my personal experience as a Muslim and as an observer of Western politics and society to establish some context that may lead us to be more aware of certain uncritical areas in our framing of the question at hand.

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North African Islamists Are Stronger Than They Look


Although everyone by now has traced a narrative arc from Tunisia to the momentous events in Egypt, eyes darted first to Algeria. In the days surrounding the collapse of Tunisian President Ben Ali’s government, many wondered about the stability of the government in Algiers. In fact, some Algerian political opposition forces are currently attempting to rally around the present moment of political openness—a moment fraught with all the more potential because of the unfolding situation in Egypt.

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Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame

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I’m not a cheerleader for the Fighting Irish. (I certainly don’t look like one). I’m not even Roman Catholic or a Notre Dame alum. Nor am I a Muslim. I’m not “secular” either. So perhaps I’ll be forgiven for indulging in a little rah-rah for Notre Dame and its recently initiated project on Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular.

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“McFootball” in New York?: a Muslim Reaction to the CM Launch

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Before departing for the launch of “Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular,” I got another one of those random emails: “Tony Blair’s Sister-in-Law Converts to Islam,” apparently after having a spiritual experience in Iran. A few years ago, Tony Blair announced his own conversion to Catholicism. This prompted me to reflect that one never seems to hear announcements of anyone’s “conversion” to “secularism.”

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An Unlikely Conversation: a Catholic Reaction to the CM Launch

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A college president who is a Catholic and a scholar of Islam cautions that a scholarly project on Catholicism and Islam should not ignore “rapture-ready Christians,” Sufi Muslims, or Christian women who have joined the “Women Aglow” movement. A woman who converted from Catholicism to Islam while a teenager, then became a scholar of Islam and wears a head scarf to boot, criticizes modernity for attacking family and community.

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What is Contending Modernities?

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What is “Contending Modernities”? In a sentence, it’s an effort to confront the fact that the relationship between religion and modernity is a lot more complex than many people anticipated. This relationship has proven more complex in at least two ways. One largely unanticipated complexity is that religion has proven pretty resilient in the face of modernity in all its forms. Religion and secularity are surviving and thriving together, creating a vast diversity of modern ways of life.

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