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Abstract: In this article, I argue that human meaning and value are grounded in an infinite horizon as opposed to the finite horizon of the building of a life. This infinite grounding of human meaning and value makes sense of and justifies the desire for everlasting life. I also argue that this infinite horizon can motivate an ethic of social justice better than the necessity of building a life within a finite timeframe could. In this article I take Martin Hägglund's This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom as representative of the position that meaning and value can only be made sense of in light of the horizon of death; and I draw on phenomenologist Michel Henry's concept of Life and Jean‐Luc Marion's concept of the saturated phenomenon to argue against that position. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and David Graeber to argue that social justice cannot be grounded in secular faith of temporal finitude but is rather best made sense of in view of an everlasting hope and a move to the infinite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an ethnographic rendering of the Catholic Church at the Detroit-Windsor borderland, this article foregrounds the ways elemental forces, including water, earth/soil, and air, form an interconnected entity that constitutes part of the theopolitical and religious scaffolding of Holy Infrastructures. We argue that the repetitive inscription of social and affective flows within an urban terrain generates infrastructure projects that contract forces of variable intensity into alliance or disjuncture. The interrelation of these forces as Holy Infrastructure, offers vital information on (dis/en)abling racialized forms of hosting and being hosted by the divine within urban settings, specifically as it pertains to theological labor at multiple scales. Indeed, we understand holiness in Catholic Detroit as a performative sovereignty of partition that mediates a desire for unbrokenness and spatiotemporal rapture. The topologies of Holy Infrastructure thus give rise to overlapping but divergent "wholes" within the racialized urban terrain, offering insight into the Church as a loose network of horizontal alliances that may enforce or subvert hierarchy. Our focus on elemental forces allows us to move beyond abstractions and focus on how theological projects take shape in physical space within an urban ecology. Indeed, Holy Infrastructures come into focus most clearly in relation to the intersection of theology with environmental, climatic, and territorial projects. By approaching Church and State as co-constitutive, we show how Holy Infrastructures offer insight into the racialized and gendered terrain of contemporary Detroit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1833, Rammohun Roy, the so-called "Father of Modern India," died abruptly while traveling in England. Because cremation was then illegal in Britain, he was buried rather than immolated according to brahminical norms. This article situates the micro-history of his colonial corpse within the genealogy of secularism. I take secularism as a formation of the body in the most morbidly literal of ways—fused to embodied formations of race, caste, class, and gender and entangled with the transcolonial networks of nineteenth-century heterodoxy. Roy's ritually indeterminate flesh was a site for cultural improvisation around a Victorian-colonial secularity formed in and through the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary studies have already explored al-Risālah magazine's (1933–1953) dynamic role in championing a far-reaching secular-grounded educational mission— which was made more urgent by the encounter with Western innovations. Still, little attention has been paid to the journal's strong linkages with Arabic classical heritage. This article argues that al-Risālah 's writings employed concepts and terminology related to al-balāghah , or eloquence, that were by turns accurate, controversial, and innovative. These uses enriched the spectrum of al-balāghah 's applicability also to the discussion of current preoccupations with other fields like psychology. While accounting for thought-provoking works like Tāhā Ḥusayn's al-Bayān al-ʿarabī min al-Jāḥiẓ ilā ʿAbd al-Qāhir [The Arabic Bayān , from al-Jāḥiẓ to ʿAbd al-Qāhir, 1933,] Amīn al-Khūlī's al-Balāghah wa-ʿilm al-nafs [ al-Balāghah and Psychology, 1939,] and al-Zayyāt's Difāʿun ʿan al-balāghah [In Defense of al-Balāghah , 1945] as pioneering studies towards the new conceptualizations of the discipline up to the mid-half of the twentieth-century, this study purports to trace the presence of al-balāghah in al-Risālah 's articles in both quantitative and qualitative terms through the employment of DH tools for data mining. By mapping the ontological shifts that occurred in traditional languages and concepts' employment as both contrastive and continuous, the present inquiries showcase modern Arab culture's dialectics of secularism and literary revisionism as self-sufficient, culturally embedded and integrated, and not as byproducts of contact with the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the dialogues of J. Ratzinger-Benedict XVI with three prominent atheists: Paolo Flores d'Arcais (2000), Jürgen Habermas (2004) and Piergiorgio Odifreddi (2013- 2021). Benedict XVI is convinced that confrontation with secular reason is a requirement of faith, which benefits from such dialogue. At the same time, it denounces the pathologies of reason and invites it to be self-critical. J. Ratzinger surprises by choosing with precision the questions with which he intends to get to the very heart of the world views that he seeks to criticize and demonstrates, at the same time, the reasonable nature of the believing option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a way to think through the division between religious and secular approaches to contemporary society through the use of rival myths. Myths are narrative structures that invite the interplay of language and the imagination, resulting in the creation of virtual realities and social imaginaries. Strong virtual realities were once premised on myths that guided the imagination to embrace an openness to mystery and the unknowable; however, current technological culture is predicated on a closed imagination that has led to worldwide despair. Religion was originally grounded in the virtual reality inspired by language and the capacity of language to distill and extract the "virtual" from the real. The ability of language to create a virtual reality created the capacity to think of a soul, as well as destinations for the soul. In the twentieth century, Freud found that the notion of "God" that was created had become problematic for humans and so created a modern myth that would provide a secular substitute. After providing a close reading of Freud's governing myth for modern culture, showing how it inspires the imagination and the ways in which it falls short, this article concludes with an alternative myth—that of the Invisible City—proposed to inspire faith, hope, and love in our modern world. My approach relies on a depth psychological framework, which was formed to interrogate the nature of reality (relative to individuals and culture) at the intersection of myth, religion, language, and imagination. Throughout, I use a hermeneutic methodology, which is consistent with the initial mode of depth psychological exploration as well as the central role language plays in revealing the truth of a reality. This orientation enables an exploration of a deeper sense of virtual realities than what is deployed through current technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those who are charged with the responsibility of governing, leading or teaching in Catholic schools at this time are challenged by questions which go to the heart of their school's mission. How is it possible for the mission of the Catholic school to be realised in a culture that is increasingly secularising? What is the secularising context and how is religious belief still possible today? These are questions of profound significance also for the families who seek a Catholic education for their children. Charles Taylor's analysis of our secular age provides a foundation for addressing these questions as do findings from the Enhancing Catholic School Identity (ECSI) research. Whilst the secularising context is sometimes painted as the enemy of Catholic education, it is presented here as being the context in which Catholic schools must realise their mission and this cultural context, like any cultural context, has elements which support the mission and elements which impede it. The following key concepts from Taylor's analysis are reviewed because of their relevance for Catholic schools: the Expressivist Age, the Cross-Pressured context and the Immanent Frame. The Post-Critical Belief Scale from the ECSI research is also reviewed, as a key finding is that Post-Critical Belief is the only viable option for faith in a secularising context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionalist Islamic preaching in the West is not limited to the normative aspects of theology, law, and ethics. In addition, it addresses the most pressing social and political issues that Muslims are currently confronting in the West; it also challenges Western modernity in general and secularism in particular. Two critical sermons of secularism delivered by two of the most well-known traditionalist Muslim preachers in their respective countries—Hamza Yusuf in the USA and Hani Ramadan in Switzerland—are analyzed in this study. First, I shall examine the arguments put up by these preachers against secularism and in support of post-secular society. Next, I will study the rhetorical strategies used in these two sermons. Finally, I will discuss the relevance of these two sermons to the contemporary debates in the West on contesting secularism and multiple secularisms. It is argued here that traditionalist Muslim preachers see secularism as an encroaching power that poses a danger to the figures of authority and norms that control gender, knowledge, and education within Muslim communities and societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secularism worldwide poses great challenges to religion. It is as if the gates are open to reject religion. Secularism in many ways challenges the truth, morality, political power and social value provided by religions in general terms. Secularism also tends to promote a society where religion has no role to play in education or state affairs. In some cases it additionally argues for the separation of Church and state and this importantly tends to limit the vital influence of a religion on pressing social and moral issues. The most important challenge however, comes from some scientists who reject a religious understanding of the world. Evolution is regarded as a proven scientific explanation of the present world. Furthermore, religious books such as the Holy Bible are rejected because of the so-called discrepancies and evil descriptions even of God. How should religions react to these challenges? The purpose of this paper is to explain the main implications of secularism. In South Africa, the religious beliefs of many are rejected. Authors of novels, many influential people, and even some theologians who turned away from faith explain that secularism should be embraced. The purpose was to engage these views and explain how religions should react. The method followed in this paper was to conduct a literature study of the main views on secularism from a selection of novelists and ex-theologians and to engage with these from a literature study of exponents who, largely from a Christian viewpoint, discuss their responses to these views. The paper then evaluated these ideas and views. The implications are that the purpose of religious beliefs is again made clear and that the value of faith in the present world of secularism is established. Although the answers are not acceptable to all, it is essential to engage secularism in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Political & International Approaches / Faṣlnāmah-i Rahyāft/hā-yi Siyāsī va Biyn/almilalī is the property of Shahid Beheshti University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With Lebanon on the edge of the outbreak of the Civil War (1975–1990), Najah Wakim, the youngest parliament deputy in the Lebanese parliament of 1972, began a long struggle to first try to prevent the war which was looming in Lebanon and then continued to work after 1975 to put an end to the unjustifiable violence and bloodshed of that period. Wakim stood against all the fighting parties, arousing their hatred and enmity, but he gained the love and respect of most of his fellow-citizens who saw in him honesty and human values for which he always fought. This is the story of Najah Wakim which still continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the true purpose of religion in a processive naturalistic universe, emphasizing the importance of respecting and trusting axiogenetic processes in nature. It explores the relationship between science and religion, highlighting the role of philosophy in integrating the first-personal qualitative immediacy of experience. The text advocates for a balanced pragmatic view of human life that integrates religion and science responsibly, emphasizing the dangers of distorting the true purpose of religion for personal gain or control. The author, J. Edward Hackett, presents a pluralistic perspective that values the complexity of spiritual practices and subjective experiences without judgment. [Extracted from the article]

This article, commissioned by the editors of Public Policy and Administration, contributes to the theoretical and methodological groundworks for the development of research in religion and public administration. It does so in three ways. The first part contrasts different approaches to defining the concept of religion, those from the vantage of academic observers against those from within religious traditions themselves. Several theoretical and methodological challenges for public administration follow. Part two sets out two theoretical concerns; first, the role of religious belief in intentional explanations of public administration activity; second, the institutionalised position of secularity in the recently freighted concept of a religious regime. Part three identifies a clutch of methodological concerns associated with these theoretical issues. A final section concludes with a summary of the contribution of the article to the nascent research programme in public administration for a post-secular world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly half of all countries have official religions or give preference to specific religious traditions. Most countries with an official religion are majority Muslim; however, most of those with a preference for particular religious traditions are majority Christian. This paper considers empirical data related to constitutional references to specific religions as a framework for a discussion of the comparative constitutional histories of Turkey and the Republic of Ireland. Both moved from systems that preferred their majority religions to ostensive neutrality. This analysis reinforces the importance of religion in law and policy regardless of cultural context and constitutional choices. Constitutional drafters have established a number of approaches to the treatment of religion, including freedom of religion, establishment of religion, separation of religion and state, neutrality, official religion, conformity, repugnancy, and sources of law/legislation. Although these linguistic choices are significant, they may not result in consistent practices across jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tabayyun is the property of Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Conventional wisdom holds and previous research confirms that for a political candidate, atheism is anathema. But the United States is becoming a more secular nation. Does secularization mean that atheists are acceptable to some Americans, specifically Democrats and voters with low religiosity? Can concerns about atheists be assuaged by appealing to the superordinate identity of “patriotic American”? Drawing on four survey experiments, we find that Democrats are more supportive of an atheist, Republicans less—producing a null effect overall. Furthermore, voters’ reactions to an atheist are not driven by the office, but are shaped by both their partisanship and religiosity. Voters’ negative attitudes are partially assuaged by framing an atheist as a patriotic war hero. As the secular population grows in the United States, it seems likely that atheists will emerge as candidates for elected office. Our data suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, atheist candidates are potentially electable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way audiences perceive media messages varies according to three different reading methods under the title of coding/decoding theory put forward by Stuart Hall. These reading methods are based on the idea that the individual moves from a passive to an active position in the face of media messages and is free to perceive the media message within the framework of certain criteria. The aim is to determine how the conservatism and secularism codes of the Kızılcık Şerbeti series are interpreted by audiences. The research is a qualitative study and the data collection method is in-depth interview method. The sample was determined as the Kızılcık Şerbeti series and the analysis was carried out with 8 participants. The data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. As a result, it was seen that the participants mostly made a dominant reading of the conservatism and secularism codes in the Kızılcık Şerbeti series and thought that these codes in the series reflected the truth. Participants think that conservative and secular women are marginalized and humiliated. At the same time, participants feel uncomfortable about the codes of conservatism and secularism and often read these codes in the series with an oppositional reading method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following critiques of secularism, feminist theory and literary analysis, this article revisits the much interpreted yet never exhausted Arabic masterpiece, the Cairo Trilogy (1956–1957), by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006). The Cairo Trilogy depicts the lives of the middle-class ʿAbd al-Jawād family in colonial Cairo during the interwar period amidst the process of modernization and national uprising against British colonial domination. Scholars have considered the relations in the Jawādī family through a patriarchal lens via the perspective of the son Kamāl, the protagonist who represents the secular Arab intellectual. This study, instead, follows Amīna, the mother of the family, and her relationship to her two sons, Kamāl and Fahmy, to explore the different options and various relations between the religious and the secular in this colonial context. By reading the Jawādī family this way, this article uncovers the orientalist-secular construction of religion and religious ways of resistance despite colonial disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Quebec's recent transition from the "Ethics and Religious Culture" (ERC) program to the "Culture and Citizenship in Quebec" (CCQ) program, emphasizing the role of religious literacy in secular societies. We investigate the rationale behind the shift, and examine the ERC's focus on fostering understanding of diverse religious and ethical perspectives as well as CCQ's broader mandate to integrate cultural and civic education and its aim at the development of a shared and common public Quebecois culture. The case study highlights the pedagogical and societal implications of this change, discussing how the CCQ program aims to enhance civic engagement, cultural awareness, and social cohesion. Furthermore, the article identifies opportunities for educators to address pressing global challenges, such as polarization, reconciliation, and the climate crisis, within the new curriculum framework. By promoting critical thinking, inclusivity, and active citizenship, fostering religious literacy in such programs presents a unique opportunity for educators and youth to contribute to a more resilient and harmonious society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Western secular literary tradition, many diasporic writers in the Maghreb in general and in Morocco in particular did not include religious or spiritual themes in their literary works, as compared to the valorized ones of race, class and gender. Much of Maghrebian fiction, primarily written by immigrant writers of Islamic background who adopt secular perspectives that are often critical of Islam, has depicted religion, especially Islam, in negative terms. Tahar Ben Jelloun is one of those writers who are criticized for being self-orientalizing authors who 'prostitute' their works to their Western audience. But, Tahar Ben Jelloun is misunderstood by the majority of his readers. In this article, using postsecularism and secular spirituality as analytical tools, I will explore the postsecular identity and diasporic religion in Tahar Ben Jelloun's A Palace in the Old Village. Reading the novel from a postsecular perspective and more specifically from a secular spiritual perspective, I will show that Tahar Ben Jelloun is neither self-orientalizing Islam nor celebrating French secularism. Instead, he is upholding postsecular values and diasporic consciousness by negotiating instances of extremism and communalism that mark the failures of both organized religion and Eurocentric secularism. Indeed, Ben Jelloun presents Islam as faith, as a spiritual practice; a diasporic religiosity which is not associated with any political doctrine or organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher attrition and shortages have become a challenge worldwide. These phenomena diminish when teachers feel satisfied with their job. This study aimed to examine the relationship between teachers' intrinsic motivations and job satisfaction in religious and secular schools. A questionnaire was administered to 759 teachers in the Israeli Jewish sector. The results show that teachers in each sector highlighted different motivational factors as a basis for fostering job-satisfaction. Providing students with social-emotional support was associated with greater satisfaction among teachers in the religious schools, while transmitting general and civic values was linked to satisfaction in the secular schools. Encouraging students to pursue high grades negatively affected job satisfaction only in the secular sector. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies the rational choice perspective to government religion policy in Turkey. We argue that a rational choice analysis can provide a new perspective on how the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) transformed Turkey's religion policy from one that was constitutionally secular to one which strongly supports Islam. We also further develop the rational choice approach arguing that radical transitions in religion policy are often incremental and require support from political allies. Also, while the motivation for transitioning from a secular regime to a religious monopoly may be due to a desire for religious legitimacy, the nature and timing of this transition may be influenced by the rise or decline of other bases for legitimacy. Overall, this study demonstrates the utility of applying the rational choice theory of religion to Muslim-majority countries and the mechanisms through which countries change their religion policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates on the distinction between religious experience and mental disorder tend to assume, rather than argue for, the existence of unique types of experience: the religious and the psychopathological. This paper interrogates this approach to the problem. It deconstructs the distinction by examining what the distinction is about beyond the terms in which it is presented and whether it matters who is trying to make it. A key idea is that one's standpoint in the debate—that is, whether one adopts a religious or a secular standpoint—determines what they can say about the distinction. This leads to the central argument of the first part of the paper: The distinction between religious experience and mental disorder can only be invoked from a secular standpoint but can only be clarified from a religious standpoint. In other words, if you have the grounds to invoke it, you cannot have the tools to clarify it; and if you have the tools to clarify it, you do not have the grounds to invoke it. In the second part, the paper follows through the implications, from a secular standpoint, of accepting this argument. It appeals to the politics of difference and to mental health activism to argue against the binary view whereby mental distress is either illness and incapacity or a path to purpose and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion was outside the European Union's original remit and the classic secular paradigm predicted it should remain there. However, the opposite happened: religion gradually seeped into the EU legal order. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty created a legal basis and political mandate for EU engagement with religion. This article shows the new treaty provisions represent a shift towards the post-secular paradigm, but implementation of this legal obligation lack coherence and has had mixed success. The case is made for a more systematic and orderly post-secular approach to EU policy and law making, which could help the EU reach certain key objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How effective was Soviet secularization and what is its long-term legacy? This paper investigates the lasting effects of Khrushchev's Virgin Lands Campaign (1950s) on the current level of Orthodox religiosity in eastern Russia using an original district (raion)-level dataset that combines historical and contemporary evidence. By employing various matching techniques and an instrumental variable approach, I identify significant effects of the Virgin Lands cultivation on diminishing the role of religion even 60 years later. Moreover, I demonstrate that the resettlement of Communist Youth League (Komsomol) members and the destruction of traditional social relations may have worked as key mechanisms that contributed to the legacy effects. This study offers one of the first micro-level empirical investigations into the impact of Communism-driven secularization, and contributes to the emerging inquiry into the historical legacy of communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how to symbolize collective identities in an age marked by both nationalist fervor and diversity politics has dominated public debates and highlighted the political role of religion. But what happens to religious objects, sites, and practices when they are framed as cultural heritage? What are the forces behind the ways in which religion is drawn into the dynamics around cultural heritage and heritage-making in secular societies? And why and how do some religious places become iconic sites of cultural heritage, arousing both national sentiments and global concerns? In this article, we explore the complex politics around religion and cultural heritage and scrutinize how they intersect with processes of secularization, and regimes of diversity and secularism. We argue that there is a growing tendency in contemporary societies to culturalize religion, suggesting that the framing of collective heritage is closely linked to what counts as religion and as culture in everyday life and in official discourse. We theorize this dynamic through the concept of 'heritage religion' and contend that it offers a distinctive material perspective on the culturalisation of religion. Drawing on Durkheim, we point out how processes of religious heritage-making produce new forms of sacredness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The culturalization of religion has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years as a compelling restatement of religion in the secular public sphere. Existing research has focused primarily on Western contexts where Christianity, as the dominant religion, is relabelled as culture in order to sanction its continued presence in the secular and multi-religious public sphere. Building on the treatment of non-majority religions in postcolonial contexts, particularly in contemporary Ghana, the article proposes a second model of culturalization in which non-dominant religions undergo culturalization as a sign of marginalisation, restriction, and exclusion. The model of culturalization adopted, the article argues, is determined by the presumed compatibility of the given religious tradition with a specific understanding of 'modernity'. Looking at culturalization as a form of marginality adds much-needed regional and thematic breadth to the ongoing discussion, as it allows for moving beyond the mostly Western Christian framework to include post-colonial and post-imperial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the battle over Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple's enormous treasure, the paper documents the litigious journey of the concept of sacred possession and heritage. It shows how the evolving and complex logic of secular governance in India provides the legal categories that animate this contestation over the deity's wealth. While the enormous treasure trove housed in the six chambers of the temple's basement 'belongs' to the idol (murthi) Lord Sree Padmanabhaswamy, the royal family of Travancore has held the right for over the last two hundred and seventy years to control the wealth as the Lord's servants (dasa). Though the dispute over what is arguably the world's largest temple gold and valuables collection began in 2007, it gained widespread media attention in 2009 when a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed. Since then, the royal family, temple management, and other stakeholders have been embroiled in the struggle for possession and control of the temple's wealth. The paper explores how legal frames of Anglo-Hindu law in their postcolonial avatars, material patrimony (gold and land), and notions of immaterial heritage (shebaitship) animated and framed this contestation. To this end, the paper maps the legal trajectory of the dispute and the public debates over the ownership and control of the astounding wealth of Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. Further, it decodes the legal reasoning behind the courts' arguments and delves into ontological questions surrounding religious freedom and secularity. The discussion illustrates how notions of immaterial heritage anchored in ideas of kingship as well as kinship emerged as clinching evidence in the management and access to this sacred wealth. Finally, the analyses offer insights into the governance of sacred materiality through religio-legal categories in a postcolonial nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial literature has developed around the individual determinants of radical political preferences. Widely used to study electoral support for far-right parties, this perspective has rarely been mobilised to understand the dynamics of radicalisation, or the process of going back to the 'roots', among fractions of Western Muslim youth involved in political Islam. To address this, 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2020 and 2021 as part of ongoing ERC Advanced Grant research with young (aged 18–30) self-identifying Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan descent based in the Paris or Lyon areas. Also drawing on the social movements literature, we uncovered two sets of factors influencing radicalisation, each based on two distinct oppositional sets of attitudes: (1) a feeling of estrangement from mainstream societal values, such as morality, secularism, and a perceived assimilationist trend emanating from the French national frame, and (2) a sense of dissatisfaction towards the political-institutional system, which appeared as latent criticisms of the current state of representative democracy, distrust of political and media actors, and discontent towards the current French party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gumushane Universty Electronic Journal of the Faculty of Communication / Gümüshane Üniversitesi Iletisim Fakültesi Elektronik Dergisi is the property of Gumushane Universitesi Iletisim Fakultesi Elektronik Dergisi (e-GIFDER) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Route Educational & Social Science Journal (Ress Journal) is the property of Ress Academy Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay focuses on a neglected phase in the competitive history of attempts to appropriate Burns and monopolise interpretations of his work. Although Burns was in his time an ecclesiastical liberal, late Victorian and Edwardian secularists, most notably William Stewart Ross (pseudonym 'Saladin') and J. M. Robertson, read Burns as a proponent of secularism and freethought. However, they recoiled from the bardolatry associated with the Burns cult as something that itself smacked of religiosity. Nevertheless, Robertson's alignment of Burns with an anti-Calvinist interpretation of Scottish history has proved an enduring feature of modern Scottish culture and criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emanation of the concept of ordre public or public order in France is based on the principle of self-affirmation, and civil law of the republic against alien infringement. There has been a separation of the temporal and spiritual power in Europe that dates back to the concept of laïcité which was a concept established by the French revolution by its Civil Constitution of the Clergy 1791 and later consecrated into law in 1905. The issue of discrimination against Muslims has arisen because of the cultural discrimination in religious formalism, such as the prohibition against the burkini and rejection of religious dress in schools. This has been achieved by superimposing the code of laïcité upon the communities' expression of their laws and by upholding the concept of ordre public that is vigorous and stringent against the practices of the Muslim community. The concept of ordre public imposes conformity on the Muslims, reinforcing stereotypes and increasing Islamophobia in France. The argument of this article is that by legally enforcing the imposition of majoritarian customs the French state is ignoring the adoption of the comparative legal method and human rights that acknowledges normative pluralism that serves to eradicate the colonial prejudices that are restricting the understanding and application of tolerant approaches to religious expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postcolonial elite inherit not only colonial institutions but also ideologies that animate future directions of institutional apparatus in their societies. This paper argues that the leadership of Women's Movements in India (WMI) are influenced by their positions within the elite sections of Indian society and the ideologies that are in circulation therein. This also applies to their engagement with religion in contemporary India. It suggests that notwithstanding the efforts made by WMI to engage with difference in relation to the "religious other," their praxis continues to remain captive to the social locations of its leadership, which in the context of India today remains predominantly urban, English speaking, professionally qualified, Hindu, and upper-caste. Drawing on empirical data and analyzing documented histories of WMI which record the movements' engagement with religion in the colonized past and in contemporary postcolonial times, this paper attempts a remapping of the connections between feminism and secularism, both of which share a legacy with post Enlightenment liberal humanism, within the postcolonial context of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh has played a significant role in shaping the national identity of Iranians, transcending linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethnic differences. This paper examines the perceptions of Iranian Sunni Muslims, and non-Muslim minorities regarding Ferdowsi and Shahnameh. A survey was conducted on Persian Twitter using simple items, and the questionnaire was also distributed among Shia Muslims, who form the majority in Iran. The findings demonstrate unanimous agreement among participants regarding the role of Ferdowsi and Shahnameh in unifying Iran geographically and shaping its cultural and secular national identity against Islamic anti-nationalism identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family law in the Middle East North Africa region has been critically scrutinized by both adherents to Islam and Western observers. There is consensus between both traditions that secularism has had no meaningful impact on women's marital rights due to Islam's continued influence on socio-cultural and legal practices. Building on this, this article examines the effects of the secular nature of Egypt and Iran, between 1900 and 1939, on women's marital rights. Contributing to the current literature by examining two countries which are rarely exclusively compared in this field, significant insights into the relationship between gender equality, marriage, and secularism emerge through interpretive textual analyses of memoirs and laws. It illustrates how secular identities affect marital laws; the importance of the political environment within the state, and how secularism is a tool for pursuing or challenging power. This article challenges homogenizing assumptions that secularism had limited effects on marital laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Batı dünyasında İslamofobi tarihsel teo-politik İslam karşıtlığı, yabancı düşmanlığı, ırkçılık ve radikalizm korkusu üzerinden geliştirilirken Türkiye’de ise basit bir kavram dönüşümüyle irtica ve şeriat korkusu aynı işlevi görmektedir. Bir nesilde kavramsal değişim olarak değerlendirilebilecek bu durum daha sonraki nesillerde zihinsel değişim ve dönüşüme yol açabilmektedir. Türkiye’de fundafobi ve bunun neticesinde yükselen bir İslamofobi’nin ve buna reaksiyon olarak oluşan laikofobinin varlığı bir realitedir. Medya da tüm organları ile bu karşılıklı çatışmayı beslemektedir. Ancak her iki tarafın da eylem ve söylemlerindeki aşırılıklar medyaya malze me oluşturmaktadır. Seküler laik Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde de yıllardır yükselen fundafobi ve gittikçe derinleşen bir İslamofobi’den söz edilmesine rağmen Batı kaynaklı fundafobi ve İslamofobi üzerine çok sayıda çalışmalar yapılırken Türkiye’de gelişen fundafobi ve İslamofobi üzerine fazla çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Kapsamlı literatür taraması üzerine yapılan bu çalışmada İslam dünyasının kendi içindeki fundafobiyi yeterince tartışmadığı için İslamofobi’ye nasıl dönüştüğüne dikkat çekilerek Türkiye’de İslamofobi’nin oluşum süreci ve medyanın rolü ele alınmaktadır. Müslüman toplumlarda da fundafobi gibi farklı kavramlar üzerinden İslamofobi’nin reaksiyoner olarak yükseldiği ve bunun toplumsal ayrışmaya zemin hazırladığı görülmektedir.

This paper explores hijab as a political discourse and discusses women’s character through a postmodern relationship with Orhan Pamuk’s Snow. In Snow, Pamuk presents Turkish Muslim women characters’ struggle during secular politics and portrays a struggle for their identity with and without hijab. A textual analysis of Pamuk’s Snow applies interdisciplinary approaches to examine Turkish women’s identity, their struggle for hijab, and the failure of secularism. To understand women’s role in politics, scholars like Khamis (2021), Axiarlis (2014), and others are prominent figures to theorize ideas of postmodernity (Muslim women’s alienation, conflict with self vs. other, a perspective of Muslims from east vs. west and Muslim identity with hijab vs. post/modern identity without hijab) and secularism (without hijab) in Muslim women’s context. To conclude, Muslim women’s self-identification and Pamuk’s writing influences under the East, and West ideas create a critical discussion, and questions about the postmodern idea of Muslim women. The hijab is closely concerned with gender targets, and the novel portrays women’s resistance in society. This burning issue catches our attention towards the women’s serious issue of suicide because of hijab politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]