Lost in Translation

VARIETIES OF SECULARISM IN A SECULAR AGE. By Michael Warner, Jonathan Wanantwerpen and Craig Calahoun (Eds.). Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 321. ISBN: 9780674048577.

HOLY IGNORANCE: WHEN RELIGION AND CULTURE PART WAYS. By Olivier Roy (trans. by Ros Schwartz). London, Hurst and Co., 2010. Pp. 259. ISBN: 9781850659921.

RELIGION IN MODERN ISLAMIC DISCOURSE. By Abdulkader Tayob. London, Hurst and Co., 2009. Pp. 200. ISBN: 9781850659532.

BUDDHISM AND ISLAM ON THE SILK ROAD. By Johan Elverskog. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Pp. 340. ISBN: 9780812242379.

If secularism was meant to be a doctrine that denied the worldliness of faith, it is in for a rude awakening. If the secular project was about the expulsion of faith from the public square, it may never come to fruition. If secularist ideology cherished delusions of the end of history, if it commissioned an unchanging world-order under Western hegemony, it may simply end up on the rubbish heap of history. If it sought to discover in the redemptive narrative of the parochial European nation-state the fountainhead of universal social theory, it stands humbled by the emergence of multiple modernities. If the deeper calling of the secular conscience was to foster pluralism and accord within the Christian city, it has been outmaneuvered by “the cunning of history” which, instead, has brought us all to the Godless nihilism of the post-Christian age. If, however, secularism still seeks civic peace and good governance in the city of mankind, it deserves to be accorded a proper hearing by all those who cherish utopian dreams and hopes, Muslims included.