Secularism was supposed to have been capable of digesting religions; not to turn into a religion in its own right that banishes some other religions. Was this not the objection to religions after all?\u00a0 That an Islamic State, for example, does not treat Jews or Christians well, that it does not view them as equals, that it gives Muslims special rights which it denies to others?\u00a0 Well, if secularism starts behaving in this same way and does not treat non-secular people well and withholds some rights from them, we will have returned to where we began.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the invitation of a group of students and people interested in the ideas of religious intellectuals, Dr Soroush presented a talk at the Maison des \u00e9tudiants belges, Cit\u00e9 Universitaire, in Paris on Thursday 2 August 2007.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Soroush began by explaining the concept of secularism.\u00a0 He said:\u00a0 In Persian, we don\u2019t have a specific term for \u2018secularism\u2019; in fact, it\u2019s a term that\u2019s unique to the Latin languages.\u00a0 Most Arabic speakers haven\u2019t found an equivalent for it either and they\u2019ve mostly chosen to use the foreign original.\u00a0 Of course, in Persian, terms such as gitianegi <\/em>and\/or donyaviat<\/em> have been suggested (derived from the words for the cosmos and the world).\u00a0 In Arabic, too, the term ilmaniat <\/em>has occasionally been used which is derived from the term for \u2018science\u2019 or for \u2018the world of differences\u2019.\u00a0 In the Latin languages, \u2018secularism\u2019 is derived from the word saeculum<\/em>, meaning here and now;\u00a0 that is to say, this world and not the next world, this world and not the world beyond.\u00a0 So, in effect, secularism is a confirmation of one world and a rejection of two other worlds.\u00a0 It means that our concern is focused on this earthly, natural world, in which we\u2019re living now, that we\u2019re seeking to understand and to succeed in the world we\u2019re in; we\u2019re not concerned about the world after death or the world beyond (the supernatural).\u00a0 On the whole, secularism is a rejection of asceticism, a confirmation of partaking in and of this world in every sense of the term, and a snubbing of the hereafter and the supernatural.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush said:\u00a0 We haven\u2019t acquainted ourselves with this concept as well as ought to have done. We therefore haven\u2019t coined a word for it either and it hasn\u2019t stirred us mentally and practically.\u00a0 But, in the West, secularism emerged and grew in a natural way and it turned into a tree that spread its branches everywhere.\u00a0 And now Westerners are living under the branches of this tree.\u00a0 Certainly, in Islamic literature, you will find two terms that are closely linked to some aspects of secularism or, at least it, are very close to it etymologically.\u00a0 One is the word \u2018dahr<\/em>\u2019, <\/em>which is apparently from the same root as \u2018dur\u00e9<\/em>\u2019 in French and \u2018duration\u2019 in English.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Explaining the word \u2018dahr<\/em>\u2019, Dr Soroush said:\u00a0 This is a word that also appears in the Qur\u2019an, at the point where the deniers say: We come into the world from ourselves and we depart from it by ourselves.\u00a0 And it is the passage of time (dahr<\/em>) that kills us, there is no other cause, there is no God, there are no supernatural or invisible forces.\u00a0 It is this world, here and now, that raises us and, ultimately, casts us down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush also said:\u00a0 \u2018Dahr<\/em>\u2019 means the age or the times and it is fully in keeping with the word \u2018secularism\u2019 which contains the idea of time.\u00a0 Of course, I\u2019m not suggesting that we should call secular people \u2018dahri<\/em>\u2019 because, in Arabic and Persian and in a religious environment, this term is considered blasphemous and insulting.\u00a0 At any rate, philosophers are of the view that the distinguishing characteristic of the nature that we\u2019re living in is that it is time-bound and they describe the supernatural world as a world that is beyond time and place.\u00a0 In English, \u2018temporal order\u2019 is used to denote this time-boundness and \u2018eternal order\u2019 to give the sense of being beyond time.\u00a0 \u2018Temporal\u2019 and \u2018secular\u2019 mean the same thing; they both mean this-worldly, earthly, time-bound, natural and material.\u00a0 It makes no difference whether we say \u2018material\u2019 or \u2018time-bound\u2019 because the supernatural world is neither of these two things. According to theologians, time is the offspring of matter, it is the offspring of the motion of matter.\u00a0 Hence, secularism means attachment to and concern for the material world, which is the time-bound world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush also referred to the Asr Sura of the Qur\u2019an and said that another related term was \u2018asr<\/em>\u2019.\u00a0 He said that, in this Sura, God swears by \u2018asr<\/em>\u2019 (which can be rendered as \u2018afternoon\u2019, \u2018evening\u2019 or \u2018declining day\u2019):\u00a0 \u201cI swear by the declining day that perdition shall be the lot of man, except for those who have faith and do good works.\u201d\u00a0 Qur\u2019anic commentators have disagreed over the meaning of asr<\/em>.\u00a0 Some have simply said that it means afternoon, arguing that, since God swears by the day and the night, He can also swear by the afternoon.\u00a0 But some maintain that, here, asr<\/em> means time.\u00a0 I also met a cleric who was so enraptured by left-wing ideas that he explained this Sura by saying that one of the meanings of asr<\/em> is \u2018pressure\u2019. He said that God was swearing by \u2018pressure\u2019, meaning that revolutionary pressure had to be brought to bear from on high to reform society!!\u00a0 Setting aside outlandish interpretations, it would seem that the term \u2018time\u2019 can be a better rendering of asr<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, God is taking this weapon away from disbelievers and saying:\u00a0 This time that you\u2019re speaking about is my own creation, like the sun and the moon, and I swear by it.\u00a0 Although time has a status that makes it worthy of being sworn by, it does not step from the realm of the created into the realm of the creator.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush then spoke about another equivalent for the term secularism and said:\u00a0 Some of you who are familiar with the philosophy and history of theology have no doubt noticed how, when our philosophers and theologians discuss religious issues, they say that we can approach a subject in one of two ways:\u00a0 rational or transmitted\/narrative.\u00a0 The narrative approach is to look at accounts that are available to us about the words and deeds of the Prophet and our revered religious figures, to see what they said about the relevant subject.\u00a0 Another approach is to rely on our own reason, without reference to the verses of the Qur\u2019an and the Prophetic narratives or Traditions; to see what we understand of something and what reason tells us about it.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Rational\u2019 in this sense is very close to the contemporary concept of \u2018secular reason\u2019.\u00a0 That is to say, a reason that is not under the sway of religion and wants to issue rulings, in its own right, about worldly matters.\u00a0 When we contrast reason with narration in this way, we mean a reason that\u2019s independent of revelation and this is exactly what a secular person favours.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush said:\u00a0 Now you can see that secularism has a practical aspect, which relates to life, and a rational aspect, which relates to thought.\u00a0 In the aspect that relates to life, it wants to reap satisfaction from life and, in the aspect that relates to thought, it wants to understand and judge for itself and not to follow the logic of revelation.\u00a0 And, then, when a people wills and endeavours to put these concepts into practice, secularism is born;\u00a0 that is to say, a people comes into being that does not bring the supernatural into play or ask invisible forces for assistance when it judges and analyses social and natural phenomena.\u00a0 A people that does not pray, does not promise to give alms if its prayers come true, does not plead for help from revered figures, shuns magic, discards myths and superstition, and abandons monasticism, asceticism and austerity in life, because one important practical aspect of secularism is that human beings are not ascetic.\u00a0 As Hafez (the 14th<\/sup> century Iranian poet) put it:\u00a0 \u201cI belong to heaven, but on this present journey \/ I am a captive of beautiful youths.\u201d\u00a0 The first sparks of secularism in the West were sparks of anti-asceticism;\u00a0 that is to say, people abandoned abandoning the world.\u00a0 They set asceticism aside and took the world seriously in every sense of the word;\u00a0 that is to say, they chose to partake rationally in politics, economics, education, science, art, industry and so on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Soroush then spoke about the different types of secularism and said:\u00a0 We have at least two types of secularism:\u00a0 political secularism and philosophical secularism.\u00a0 The meaning of political secularism is clear;\u00a0 it means the separation of religion and the State.\u00a0 It means governing this world without concern for the two other worlds, as if this is the only world and we, human beings, are its rulers and our self-justifying reason is the judge of all things. It means that the State\u2019s legitimacy is not pegged on religion. It means that the State is neutral towards religions.\u00a0 It means that society\u2019s laws are not obtained from religion. But we also have philosophical secularism.\u00a0 Philosophical secularism means that there is no God.\u00a0 There is no supernatural world.\u00a0 There is no hereafter.\u00a0 It is akin to naturalism and materialism.\u00a0 In political secularism, you don\u2019t necessarily reject God, but, in politics, you don\u2019t concern yourself with God and religion.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need to reject the hereafter, but you don\u2019t concern yourself with it.\u00a0 But in philosophical secularism, you make judgments and your judgments are negative, you consider religions to be without truth.\u00a0 When Max Weber said that modernity meant the demystification of the world, this is what he meant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Turning to the causes of the emergence of secularism in the West, Dr Soroush said:\u00a0 Now, why is it that secularism came into being in the West from the 16th<\/sup> century onwards, whereas it did not develop in the world of Islam and in the East as a whole? What was the factor behind secularism\u2019s growth in the West?\u00a0 First and foremost, I have to say in this connection that secularism had a natural birth in the West.\u00a0 In other words, it was an infant that spent the appropriate length of time in the womb of the West\u2019s history and, when it had reached its full term, it came into this world;\u00a0 its birth was not accompanied by a Caesarean section and bleeding.\u00a0 We can attribute this to two causes.\u00a0 The first cause was the confrontation and clash between science and religion.\u00a0 The quarrel between science and religion was a very fateful quarrel in the history of Europe.\u00a0 And it was not a product of a conspiracy, ill will, malice or irreligiosity.\u00a0 In fact, it was a very natural quarrel:\u00a0 there was growth in the natural sciences, in geology, biology, astronomy.\u00a0 And new information came to light that was in conflict with the contents of Scripture and the conflict intensified to the point where it became impossible to hide or deny.\u00a0 There was Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton and, later, Buffon and Darwin.\u00a0 Some of these people were religious themselves.\u00a0 As it happens, Galileo was a religious man.\u00a0 Copernicus was once a priest.\u00a0 Kepler was someone who had gone several steps beyond the common religion of the masses to the point of being superstitious.\u00a0 But the product of these people\u2019s work was something that was not in any way in keeping with the contents of Scripture, especially on the subject of the motion of the earth and the sun and the planets.\u00a0 The Church tolerated these ideas for a while but, then, the quarrel flared up.\u00a0 The status that the Church and Scripture acquired thereafter never went back to what it had been before the quarrel.\u00a0 In all fairness, despite all its hostility towards science, the Church did not go down the path of fanaticism.\u00a0 The Church allowed the publication of Copernicus\u2019s book.\u00a0 In The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres<\/em>, Copernicus explicitly stated that the earth was in motion and that the sun was still, whereas, according to Scripture, it was the sun that moved and the earth that was still.\u00a0 From the 400 copies of the book that were published in the 16th<\/sup> century, 200 still exist today.\u00a0 The tales about Galileo having been put to death are all untrue.\u00a0 Of course, they did put Galileo under house arrest.\u00a0 The Church allowed the publication of Copernicus\u2019s book but wrote an introduction to it.\u00a0 And the important point that was made in this introduction was \u201cwhat is stated in this book is a theory and not the absolute truth\u201d.\u00a0 This was a laudable and sensible solution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The big and small discoveries that were being made here and there gradually robbed Scripture of the status that it had had heretofore.\u00a0 Religion lost its former power and status and, from then on, it was no longer the actor on the social and political stage that it had been before.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As long as religion was strong, it was in the political arena.\u00a0 When faith diminished and religion\u2019s status declined, this actor ended up playing a smaller role.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was not as if anyone evicted religion from the political stage;\u00a0 it just grew weaker and moved to the sidelines.\u00a0 This is why I said it was a natural birth.\u00a0 The political stage is for powerful players.\u00a0 When religion was strong, there was no need for anyone to invite religion onto the political stage.\u00a0 And, when it grew weak, it inevitably left the stage;\u00a0 there was no need for anyone to evict it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The second cause was the rupture that occurred in Christianity;\u00a0 that is to say, the birth of Protestantism from the ribs of Catholicism. This Protestantism reduced the Church\u2019s strength; in fact, it stood exactly opposite the Church.\u00a0 Martin Luther was the first person to translate the Bible into German.\u00a0 And he said that everyone was their own priest and he rejected the authority of the Church.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These two events together weakened the Christian Church so that it departed from the game of power, and this departure meant that there was now a separation between religion and the State.\u00a0 Some people imagine that, in European countries, some people drew up Constitutions stating that, henceforth, there must be a separation between religion and politics.\u00a0 This was not at all the case.\u00a0 The fact that this has been stated in European Constitutions was the effect of this development, not its cause.\u00a0 At any rate, the secularism that was born was a tolerant secularism. It was not militant.\u00a0 Since it knew that religion was weak, it felt no need to attack it.\u00a0 As recently as about 30 or 40 years ago, many sociologists were of the view that not just Christianity but all religions were on the decline. They believed that history was moving in the direction of political secularism.\u00a0 So, what do you do when faced with weaklings?\u00a0 You are tolerant and you tell yourself that they pose no danger, they are doing no harm, let them have their mosque or church, let them observe their rituals. Secularism proceeded on the assumption that it should be neutral towards religions and view them all in the same light. As far as secularism is concerned, it makes no difference that there are Bahais, Christians, Muslims, Jews and\/or Zoroastrians in society, because it assumed that they were all being left behind by history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Secularism in this sense both led to the separation of religion and the State and adopted a neutral approach to religions.\u00a0 Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said with pride:\u00a0 \u201cIn the US now, you can see mosques and synagogues alongside churches, and they are all coexisting peacefully.\u201d\u00a0 And, in fact, this is something to be proud of and it is a very laudable situation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But gradually secularism enters a new era which I call the era of militant secularism; a secularism that has lost its capacity for tolerance, that does not view all religions in the same light. A secularism that loses its previous, strong digestion system, as if surrendering to secularism\u2019s enemies.\u00a0 One example of this is the question of schoolgirls and the hijab<\/em> in France.\u00a0 Or Tony Blair, when he said:\u00a0 \u201cIf they don\u2019t like our values, they can leave Britain.\u201d\u00a0 Turkey\u2019s position is the clearest of all in this respect. It officially baulks at the idea of having a Muslim president.\u00a0 Some people come out into the streets in the name of defending secularism and Western media fuel the flames.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Examining the root causes of the emergence of militant secularism, Dr Soroush said:\u00a0 First, one of the underlying assumptions of secularism has now been falsified.\u00a0 Political secularism bore one meaning, which is the separation of religion and the State, and one historical prediction, which is that religion will become increasingly weak.\u00a0 Hence, secularism would become easier with every passing day.\u00a0 Today, the prediction has turned out false and this is something that you\u2019ve been hearing from major sociologists over the past 20 or 30 years, that religions are gaining in strength.\u00a0 We won\u2019t go into why this is happening now, but it is happening.\u00a0 In sociology, they were always speaking about the USA as an exception, because religiosity is strong in the US.\u00a0 But now, this is happening everywhere.\u00a0 People like Peter Berger and Jose Casanova are openly saying that secularism is not history\u2019s destination; just as they used to say in Marxism that socialism was historically inevitable, but it became clear that this wasn\u2019t necessarily the case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now, when religions grow stronger, it is not clear whether they will be tolerant towards them.\u00a0 This is a flaw that applies to both liberalism and secularism.\u00a0 Secularism\u2019s digestion system was good for swallowing weak religions, but it can\u2019t swallow strong religions.\u00a0 They get stuck in its throat so it turns militant.\u00a0 A new theory is needed.\u00a0 Don\u2019t look at Al-Qaeda and the like, which the gentlemen like to emphasize. First of all, it is not a broad-based movement and, secondly, it is a minor exception that will not last.\u00a0 This is not what people mean when they say religions are growing stronger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As to why religion is springing back to life, American sociologists say that it is because there is a crisis of identity.\u00a0 Some others say that there is a crisis of meaning and spirituality.\u00a0 Whatever it may be, there are obviously some causes and, whatever these causes, the effect is what we\u2019re seeing.\u00a0 The US attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.\u00a0 Then, both countries stipulated in their new Constitutions that they must derive their laws from the shariah<\/em>.\u00a0 This is something that the Americans couldn\u2019t have imagined.\u00a0 In other words, Saddam\u2019s secularism has been transformed into the current anti-secularism in Iraq.\u00a0 In Afghanistan, too, they\u2019ve stated officially that their laws must not contravene the shariah<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 The second time when Mr Bush was elected president, it was because some people thought that he\u2019s a very religious man.\u00a0 They made a pact with God and voted for him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Religious minorities now have a stronger sense of identity.\u00a0 Because of the way they behaved over the hijab<\/em>, the hijab<\/em> has turned into a matter of identity.\u00a0 Before, it used to be a religious matter, like the prayer and fasting that Muslims consider themselves duty-bound to perform without making any claims about it and without making a show of it.\u00a0 They were simply performing their duty.\u00a0 The hijab<\/em> has turned into a matter of identity.\u00a0 Religion has two aspects:\u00a0 identity and truth.\u00a0 And militant secularism unfortunately intensifies the identity aspect of religion. And this is to the detriment of both religion and secularism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The second point is that, in countries such as Turkey, where religion is strong, secularism cannot be imposed from above, with militancy and high-handedness.\u00a0 As I said, secularism had a natural birth in Europe.\u00a0 Religion grew weak, it left the game of politics.\u00a0 But in Turkey religion isn\u2019t weak;\u00a0 more people go to mosques there than they do in Iran.\u00a0 Thirty years ago, when I went to Turkey, I saw big crowds of worshippers in Istanbul\u2019s mosques.\u00a0 When I returned to Iran, I said: \u201cI\u2019m sure something is going to happen in Turkey.\u201d\u00a0 In Turkey, no one receives rewards for being a Muslim;\u00a0 unlike Iran, where if you make a show of going to the mosque for the ritual prayers a couple of times, it has an impact on your promotion in your university post!\u00a0 There, you can see crowds eagerly going to Friday prayers and the daily congregational prayers which shows that religion is alive.\u00a0 And in a place where religion is alive and strong, it will definitely play a role in politics.\u00a0 If you want to harp on secularism in such a place, then it\u2019s clear that it can only be militant secularism;\u00a0 that is to say, a secularism that wants to quarrel, not a secularism that favours tolerance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In European countries, States are slowly losing their tolerance towards religious minorities and their tolerant secularism is turning into militant secularism, which means that it is no different from religions.\u00a0 Because Secularism was supposed to have been capable of digesting religions; not to turn into a religion in its own right that banishes some other religions. Was this not the objection to religions after all?\u00a0 That an Islamic State, for example, does not treat Jews or Christians well, that it does not view them as equals, that it gives Muslims special rights which it denies to others?\u00a0 Well, if secularism starts behaving in this same way and does not treat non-secular people well and withholds some rights from them, we will have returned to where we began.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, Dr Soroush predicted that secularism and liberalism would be facing a series of serious challenges in the future in view of the resurgence of religions.\u00a0 He said:\u00a0 I believe that neither liberalism nor secularism will remain in their current form.\u00a0 However \u2013 and a thousand howevers \u2013 I don\u2019t want to conclude, on the basis of what I\u2019ve said, that we should move towards intolerance.\u00a0 Tolerance is a great human value and virtue, and this isn\u2019t even something that we need to learn from foreigners.\u00a0 Hafez, our great poet, said:\u00a0 \u201cIn these two phrases lies peace in this world and the next \/ With friends magnanimity;\u00a0 with enemies, tolerance.\u201d\u00a0 From now on, the West must formulate theories on how they intend to be tolerant towards the strong.\u00a0 So far, their theories were directed at being tolerant towards the weak, but now the challenge is greater.\u00a0 Muslims can contribute to the formulation of these theories and offer a civilized response to this challenge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then, Dr Soroush fielded questions from the audience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translated from the Persian by Nilou Mobasser<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Secularism was supposed to have been capable of digesting religions; not to turn into a religion in its own right that banishes some other religions. Was this not the objection to religions after all?\u00a0 That an Islamic State, for example, does not treat Jews or Christians well, that it does not view them as equals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}