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https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.44.2019.3.35-51
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Secularity through a 'Soft Distinction' in the Islamic Ecumene? Adab as a Counterpoint to Shari'a
Säkularität durch eine 'weiche Unterscheidung' in der islamischen Ökumene: Adab als Gegenpol zur Scharia
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Abstract
This article highlights a 'soft' distinction in the regulation of human conduct which emerged through various epochs of Islamicate history: between adab as the marker of an ethical and literary tradition, on the one hand, and the normative claims covered by shari‘a and drawing particularly on the ex... view more
This article highlights a 'soft' distinction in the regulation of human conduct which emerged through various epochs of Islamicate history: between adab as the marker of an ethical and literary tradition, on the one hand, and the normative claims covered by shari‘a and drawing particularly on the exemplary sayings of Prophet Muhammad, the hadith corpus, on the other. Adab became a counterpoint to the hadith-shari‘a discourse by relying on non-Prophetic and, in this sense, non-divine sources of knowledge. The first part of the study reconstructs the trajectory of adab in pre-colonial times while the second part explores crucial transformations occurring under the impact of European colonial modernity, whose discourse propagated a strongly autonomous notion of secular civility. The interventions of several Muslim reformers of the era contributed to make adab the hub of an autochthonous type of secularity. Here adab still works as a marker of a soft distinction - only that it now becomes a 'double distinction': both between a mundane and a prophetic tradition within the Islamic ecumene, and between an emerging Muslim secularity and the European colonial one.... view less
Keywords
ecumenical movement; Islam; colonialism; sharia; politeness; tradition; modernity
Classification
Social History, Historical Social Research
Sociology of Religion
Free Keywords
secularity; civility; adab; hadith; shari'a
Document language
English
Publication Year
2019
Page/Pages
p. 35-51
Journal
Historical Social Research, 44 (2019) 3
Issue topic
Islamicate Secularities in Past and Present
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed