Is
religion a political act?
enealogies
ofReligion
TalalAsad
The idea that religion has undergone a radical change since the Christian
Reformation-from totalitarian and socially repressive to private and relatively
benign-is a familiar part of the story of secularization . It is often invoked to
explain andjustify the liberal politics and world-view ofmodernity. And it leads
to
the
view
that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Talal
Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions. He argues that
"religion" is a construction of European modernity, a construction that
authorizes-for Westerners and non-Westerners alike-particular forms of
"history making." Asad examines aspects of this authorizing process in the so–
called fundamentalism ofSaudi Arabia, in the Rushdie affair in Great Britain, and
in other phenomena.
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