Modern secular authorities have displaced Islam as the arbiter of Muslim social life

Evidence

Islam, as a religion, has lost little of its force, but Islam as the arbiter of social life [in the modern world] is being dethroned; alongside it, or above it, new forces exert an authority which is sometimes in contradiction to its traditions and its social prescriptions, but nevertheless forces its way in their teeth. To put the position in its simplest terms, what has happened is this. Until recently, the ordinary Muslim citizen and cultivator had no political interests or functions, and no literature of easy access except religious literature, had no festivals and no communal life except in connection with religion, saw little or nothing of the outside world except through religious glasses. To him, in consequence, religion meant everything. Now, however, more in all the advanced countries, his interests have expanded and his activities are no longer bounded by religion. He has political questions thrust on his notice; he reads, or has read to him, a mass of articles on subjects of all kinds which have nothing to do with religion, and in which the religious point of view may not be discussed at all and the verdict held to lie with some quite different principles. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 713

Categorization

• XREF: This anticipates the secularization/modernity claims the Islamophobia field grapples with; connects to how ‘the modern’ is constructed as a Western category against which Islam is rendered pre-modern.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 713