Arab nationalism confines religion to the private domain, as secularism requires.

Evidence

The differences spring from the Islamist project of regulating conduct in the world in accordance with “the principles of religion” (usul uddin), and from the fact that the community to be constructed stands counter to many of the values of modern Western life that Arab nationalism endorses. Both these conditions define what one might call contemporary Islamic worldliness. The basic thrust of Arab nationalist ideology is of course supra-denominational (despite its invocations of Islamic history and its concessions to Islamic popular sentiment), and it is committed to the doctrine of separating law and citizenship from religious affiliation and of confining the latter to the private domain. In brief, “religion” is what secular Arabism specifies and tries to set in its proper social place. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 955 (#expands, via linked claim)

In conclusion, I want to suggest that if the secularization thesis seems increasingly implausible to some of us this is not simply because religion is now playing a vibrant part in the modern world of nations. In a sense what many would anachronistically call “religion” was always involved in the world of power. If the secularization thesis no longer carries the conviction it once did, this is because the categories of “politics” and “religion” turn out to implicate each other more profoundly than we thought, a discovery that has accompanied our growing understanding of the powers of the modern nation-state. The concept of the secular cannot do without the idea of religion. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 972 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Secularism’s private-religion demand is undermined by the state regulating all of life.; Secular Arab nationalism defines religion by confining it to the private domain — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 955; Liberal pluralism restricts ethnic identity to the private domain. (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Secular Arab nationalism defines religion by confining it to the private domain #expands (1.00) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 955
• The secular cannot be conceived without the category of religion. #complicates (0.82) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 972
• Secularism claims to be separate from yet productive of religion. #complicates (0.78)
• Secularism as neutral ground cannot host a public sphere because it is itself theological #complicates (0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 375
• All-pervasive religion makes isolating the secular nearly impossible #complicates (0.74) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 806
• The religious and secular are not essentially fixed categories. #complicates (0.72) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 103