The Sacred as Secular: State Control and Mosques Neutrality in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia
How are the characteristics of state-religion relations defined? The following paper provides a critical response to the competition perspective in studies on secularization, secularism, and mobilized religion. It argues that actors differ in how religion and state should relate to public life, not...
| Published in: | Politics and religion |
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| Subtitles: | Symposium: Political Secularism and Religious difference in Western Europe, The Middle East, and North Africa |
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
[2019]
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| In: |
Politics and religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Tunisia
/ State
/ Secularism
/ Muslim community
/ Neutrality
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AD Sociology of religion; religious policy KBL Near East and North Africa ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | How are the characteristics of state-religion relations defined? The following paper provides a critical response to the competition perspective in studies on secularization, secularism, and mobilized religion. It argues that actors differ in how religion and state should relate to public life, not the extent that they should be integral or separate from each other. This paper substantiates its argument by exploring how in Tunisia--in a context of revolutionary, social and political instability--a variety of positions were articulated regarding the preferred position of Islam in relation to, first, national identity and, second, state authority. This is done in direct reference to one particular contentious issue: State control over mosques in name of ensuring the partisan neutrality of religious spaces in the country. This paper builds on multiple fieldwork visits to Tunisia and specifically Sfax, during which 32 individuals were interviewed. In addition, this paper builds on hundreds of primary and secondary sources. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-0491 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Politics and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S1755048318000597 |