Islamic Thought and Sources
Secular Translations
Nation-State, Modern Self and Calculative Reason
Author(s): Talal Asad
Reviewed by: Sajjad Rizvi
Review
Asad’s latest work is a continuation of his engagement with the anthropological and philosophical process of ‘translation’ combined with his major work in the last two decades of tracing the parallel and connected genealogies of the concepts of the secular and the religious. It is arguably also his most explicit engagement with the canon of modern European philosophy – and especially liberal thought – deployed to decentre the narratives about the rise of the liberal, secular self in the exclusive space of modern Europe.