Secular Arab nationalism defines religion by confining it to the private domain

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

Categorization

• XREF: Directly foreshadows Asad’s core thesis that the secular defines and disciplines ‘religion’ — connects to Cooper’s argument about how putatively neutral secular modernity quietly privileges Christian norms.
• DEFINE: Establishes that the very category ‘religion’ is a product of secular projects which police its proper domain.