Focused Definition
Secularization in Arkoun is not a negation of religion, nor a copy of the European experience, but a reorganization of the relationship between the religious, the political, and the epistemic so that no single party monopolizes truth or legitimacy. It is an attempt to open the public sphere to plurality and critique, and to prevent the entanglement of power with the sacred in a way that allows each to reinforce the other.
Its Place in the Project
Secularization appears in Arkoun’s project as part of a broader question about the conditions of understanding in Muslim societies. It is linked to critique of reason, the reopening of ijtihad, educational reform, and the expansion of the civic sphere, because the problem is not the presence of religion within society, but its transformation into an apparatus for monopolizing meaning. Hence its close connection with modernity, with power and knowledge, and with tradition; for there is no meaning to genuine secularization unless the structures are dismantled that make the sacred an instrument of legitimation, and make legitimacy itself closed off to a class or institution.
Example or Witness
This concept appears when Arkoun criticizes the intertwining of religious authority with political decision-making, such that objection to power becomes an objection to the sacred itself. Here secularization does not mean excluding religion, but freeing the public sphere from the monopoly on interpretation, and freeing religion itself from turning into an authoritarian language. For this reason, its clearest model in Arkoun remains the construction of a space that allows critique and disagreement without confiscation in the name of the sacred.
See also: Secularization (concept page)