The New Secularism in the Muslim World: Religion and the State in Central Asia and Azerbaijan

by Svante E Cornell

Overview

Across the Muslim world, religion and politics have become increasingly mixed in the past century, with devastating consequences. But there are signs that the ascendancy of political Islam may be coming to an end. In this context, the experience of Central Asia and Azerbaijan as Muslim-majority states that insist on secular laws, courts and education is a much-overlooked model that is bound to attract greater interest. THE NEW SECULARISM is the first study of the Central Asian model in the realm of the interaction of religion and the state, which examines its characteristics as well as how it relates to other frequently touted models in the Muslim world.

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center whose components are affiliated, respectively, with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He is the author or editor of eight books.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781956450644
Publisher:	Armin Lear Press
Publication date:	03/02/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	308
File size:	792 KB

About the Author

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center whose components are affiliated, respectively, with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He previously taught political science and Eurasian affairs at Uppsala and at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. He focuses on national security, regional politics, and conflict management issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus, as well as Turkey. He is the author or editor of eight books and more than one hundred articles.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Problem:

State and Religion in the Muslim World

Is Islam the Problem?

Theological Context

Intellectual Currents in the Muslim World

The Intellectual Hegemony of Islamism

Implications of the Islamist Hegemony

Will Islamism Prevail?

2. The State and Religion:

Models of Interaction

The Emergence of Freedom of Conscience

and Separation of Church and State

Understandings of Secularism

Five Models

Between Ideal-Types and Reality

3. Religion in Central Asia and Azerbaijan

Central Asian Islam

Law and Creed: The Development of Islamic Theology

in Central Asia

Central Asian Sufism

Between Two Empires: Russian Rule, Ottoman Reforms,

and Emergence of Secular Intelligentsia

Soviet Rule and its Unexpected Consequences

4. Independence and the Religious Question

The Challenge of Statehood: Central Asia at Independence

The Challenge of Radical Islam

Challenges and Responses

5. Devil in the Detail:

Specific Challenges and Responses

Tajikistan: From Power-Sharing to Growing Restrictions

Uzbekistan: From Defensive to Proactive

Azerbaijan: Sunni-Shia Relations and "Multiculturalism"

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: The Limits of Openness

Turkmenistan

Similarities and Differences

6. Is There a Model?

Embracing Secularism

The Legal Basis

Traditional vs Novel Religion

Residual Soviet Thinking and the Primacy

of Security Structures

Doubling Down: Articulating Positive Agendas

Do Similarities a Model Make?

7. Central Asian Secularism

In Comparative Perspective

Turkey's Declining Secularism

Tunisia: The Domestication of Islamism?.

The Moderate Monarchies: Jordan, Morocco, the UAE

Incomplete Secularism: Laïcité in West Africa

Indonesia: Democracy in a Religious State

Conclusion

8. Looking Ahead

Editorial Reviews

Too often cultural, political and security insensitivities have blinded the eyes of well-meaning activists causing them to declare what's right wrong and what's wrong right. This is frequently the case regarding religious freedom and secular governance in Central Asia and Azerbaijan. As only he can, Svante Cornell asks the questions so few are willing to ask but whose answers are the missing link in the elusive pursuit of religious freedom, for all.

REV. JOHNNIE MOORE, President of the Congress of Christian Leaders, former Commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Svante Cornell's new book is a must read for anyone interested in the relationship between Islam and the state. The former Republics of Central Asia and Azerbaijan, he reveals, have developed a unique model of the secular state, one that respects traditional forms of belief but works aggressively to keep religion out of politics. While admitting that religion has sometimes been oversecuritized by the state, Cornell also suggests that the Central Asian and Azerbaijani approach has successfully countered the divisiveness of radical Islamist ideologies. The book lays the groundwork for arguing that American officials who seek to promote freedom of religion sometimes inadvertently assist religious radicals who seek

to destroy the coexistence among Muslim, Christian and Jewish citizens that the Central Asian and Azerbaijani model seeks to protect.

MICHAEL DORAN, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, and former Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, National Security Council.

Rigorously written and rich in detail, this book deserves to enter the mainstream of debate over the current state and future development of relationship between the state and religion in Central Asia. Dr. Cornell traces the regional history of Islam with emphasis on the emergence of the Maturidi school and how secular views gradually spread across the region even before the Soviet rule. He masterly maps out how the Central Asian "model" of religious policy was formed and is functioning now across the region.

SENATOR SODYQ SAFOEV, Rector, University of World Economy & Diplomacy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Religion, religious freedom, secularism, Islam, Islamism-these are subjects about which most people are less knowledgeable than they assume. They'd be well-advised to turn to Svante Cornell's new book which focuses a scholarly eye on them all, and delves deeply into Central Asia and the Caucasus, a fascinating and historically rich corner of the world that has been largely neglected by academics and journalists alike.

CLIFF MAY, President, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former Commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

From the Publisher