Religion and Public Life

Abstract

Recent developments in the political discourse on the relevance of religion
to public life have reinforced the general impression, shared by scholars the
world over, that religion is making a comeback to the public sphere. One
example of this renewed interest in religion is the new Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives, announced by President Bush. These initiatives are
presented as a way to enhance the welfare and social programs of the
United State government, which were challenged in the late eighties, and
were seriously disrupted in the nineties.
The revitalization of religion in the last few decades, and the increased
recognition of the need for acknowledging the vital role played by religion
and religious consciousness in maintaining the moral cohesiveness of
public life, have ignited a new public debate in the West over the extent to
which religion can be allowed to venture into the public square without
violating the principle of separation of church and state.
Muslim scholars, on the other hand, are adamant on the inseparability of
religion and state in an Islamic society, where an organized religion is
absent. Needless to say, such a position is usually received with great
amusement and suspicion by western scholars and thinkers, often
concerned about the possible stifling of the rational debate of public policy
and the likely infringement of the rights of religious minorities. The
conflicting positions of Muslim and western scholars is at one level a
problem of incommensurability between two political cultures. On a
deeper level, the incongruence between the two positions reveals a need for
more profound analysis of the relevance of religion to public life in a
globalizing world that is increasingly yearning for meaning and direction.
Incommensurability and Political Maturation
Muhyiddin Bin Arabi, the famous Andalusian Muslim mystic-scholar who
lived in the fifth century of the Islamic era, (twelfth century of the Christian
era), wrote the following statement in his voluminous work, Al-Futuhat a1
Makkiyyah [Makkan Insights]: ...