CHICAGO (IPS) — The presence of religion in public space
challenges our ideas about the roles of faith in our lives and politics. Over
the last centuries, proponents of secularisation have claimed that as societies
modernise, the role of religion in public and private life diminishes. For
them, modern rationality, science, and the ideal of representative governments
as sovereign replace religion as a source of authority, regulation, and
security.

But a new claim is that religion is necessary for us today,
not despite modernity, but precisely because of it. Religion is required in the
public space, it is argued, because only faith can amend the deficits and
alleviate the pain caused by modern life.

Since the 1970s, the secularisation thesis has been forced
onto the defensive as a tide of religiosity – often “fundamentalist”
in nature – gained renewed influence in the major traditions, including
Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Religion has thus returned to
overtly public and political matters.

But how closely can sacred teachings inform politics and
governance? The prism of the Muslim Middle East shows how the public role of
religion has varied over time. In the late 19th century Middle East, several
religious movements emerged in response to Islam’s encounter with the European
colonial conquest and modernity. Traditionalists such as Wahabis sought to
preserve their culturally specific Islamic heritage.

The modernist trend, spearheaded by cosmopolitan leaders
such as Jamal eddin Afghani and Mohammad Abdou, advocated an evolving Islam
that would coexist and flourish within this emerging modernity. And some people
demanded separating Islam from the state entirely.

Middle East Muslim public life has for over a century been
the site of rivalry between a minority wanting to entirely secularise their
societies, and Islamic traditionalist or fundamentalists, who oppose many
modern ideas and civil institutions. Meanwhile, the majority of ordinary people
have tried in their daily lives to marry their modern aspirations for basic
rights and better material lives with their religious traditions.

The 1970s brought revived and aggressive religious
engagement in society and politics. Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 bolstered
a new global era of religious politics in the Middle East and beyond by
offering a tangible model of Islamic rule. That same year, Islamic militants
seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca in a failed effort to dislodge the Saudi
rulers.

The shocking assault spurred radicalisation and accelerated
the rivalry between Wahabi and Salafi trends. By the mid-1990s, the public
space in the Middle East was dominated by Islamic movements, institutions, and
sensibilities – in mosques, media, NGOs, education apparatus, judiciary, and in
the streets. More concretely, religious groups in the Sudan, Saudi Arabia,
Afghanistan, and Iran ruled through Islamic states.

But the realisation of an Islamic state carries within it
contradictory seeds of its own decline. History has shown that religious states
of any faith inevitably lead to the secularisation of theology, for leaders,
religious or not, must respond to day-to- day exigencies of governance. Sacred
injunctions are bent, revised, or cast aside to accommodate the requisites of
governance or merely to justify power.

As in Iran, authorities will ignore laws, including the
constitution, or proscribe people’s religious obligations, if such is deemed
necessary to secure the “religious” state. Religion thus descends
from the height of devotion and spirituality to be a pliable instrument to
serve secular objectives.

Cynical secularisation of the sacred by the
“Islamic” states is alienating many Muslim citizens. Secular,
faithful, and even many members of the ulema (Muslim spiritual leaders) have
pleaded for the separation of religion from the state, in order to restore both
the sanctity of religion and the rationality of the state. Most of them are
seeking a post-Islamist trajectory where faith is merged with freedom and Islam
with democracy, in which a civil democratic state can work within a pious society.

Examples in the Muslim world, from Indonesia’s Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS) to Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, as well as the
current “Arab Spring,” are pointing toward post-Islamist polities.

For Muslim societies, not modernizing is no longer an
option. Only a secular democratic state respecting basic human rights for all
can provide good and modern governance for the faithful and the secular alike.
Under a secular democratic state religion can flourish while non-religious
people and religious minorities remain secure.

Asef Bayat is a Professor of Sociology and Middle East
Studies, University of Illinois. His latest book, “Life as Politics: How
Ordinary People Change the Middle East” (2010), is published by Stanford
University Press.

This article is part of the series “Religion, Politics
& the Public Space” in collaboration with the United Nations Alliance
of Civilizations and its Global Experts project (www.theglobalexperts.org) .

The views expressed in these articles are those of the
authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nation Alliance of
Civilizations or of the institutions to which the authors are affiliated.