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The French government's 2004 decision to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious signs from public schools puzzled many observers, both because it seemed to infringe needlessly on religious freedom, and because it was hailed by many in France as an answer to a surprisingly wide range of social ills, from violence against females in poor suburbs to anti-Semitism.Why the French Don't Like Headscarvesexplains why headscarves on schoolgirls caused such a furor, and why the furor yielded this law. Making sense of the dramatic debate from his perspective as an American anthropologist in France at the time, John Bowen writes about everyday life and public events while also presenting interviews with officials and intellectuals, and analyzing French television programs and other media. Bowen argues that the focus on headscarves came from a century-old sensitivity to the public presence of religion in schools, feared links between public expressions of Islamic identity and radical Islam, and a media-driven frenzy that built support for a headscarf ban during 2003-2004. Although the defense oflaïcité(secularity) was cited as the law's major justification, politicians, intellectuals, and the media linked the scarves to more concrete social anxieties--about \"communalism,\" political Islam, and violence toward women. Written in engaging, jargon-free prose,Why the French Don't Like Headscarvesis the first comprehensive and objective analysis of this subject, in any language, and it speaks to tensions between assimilation and diversity that extend well beyond France's borders.

During the fifteenth general election (GE15) in 2022 and the state elections in 2023, the clash between Anwar Ibrahim and PAS reached new heights. This can be viewed as a battle between political Islam and post-Islamism. Political Islam as embodied by PAS pursues the establishment of an Islamic state, while post-Islamism as represented by Anwar Ibrahim is a way of balancing the ambitions of Islam with secular approaches. While PAS has been consistent in espousing political Islam since its establishment, Anwar Ibrahim's approach to the role of Islam in politics has changed since his early days in UMNO. Evolving from an Islamist involved in state-led Islamization to a post-Islamist, he now espouses democratic values and multiculturalism. The results of GE15 and the 2023 state elections between PAS and Anwar Ibrahim, who is now prime minister, show that there will certainly be sequels to come. The elections illustrate that political Islam is growing in strength. This is most evident in the fact that PAS currently has a whopping forty-three seats in the Malaysian parliament, and controls four states. The only way Anwar Ibrahim can remain in power is through assistance from PAS' old nemesis, UMNO, a party heavily tainted by corruption.

Regarding organizational power, Salafism in France is a minority of dispersed groups emerging on the periphery of the Muslim French space. However, it can be regarded as a discursive force that has influenced significantly French discussions about Islam. Specifically, one of the most contentious positions in French political and intellectual discourse at the moment is Salafi vehement rejection of laïcité as a conspiracy against religion in general and Islam in particular. This article provides a close reading of three Salafi and neo-traditionalist discourses on secularism written by well-known theologians and intellectuals associated with this school of thought: Youssef Hindi, Kareem El Hidjaazi, and Aïssam Aït-Yahya. Investigative in nature, our aim is to comprehend the fundamental criticisms of French secularism and the rhetorical devices these Salafi and neo-traditionalist discourses have been using for the past ten years.

Islamic resistance to secularism is one of the most frequently stated problems in France. This paper addresses this issue as seen by French Muslim discourses. It is argued, here, that French Muslim discourses on laïcité are determined by the claim of equal treatment of Muslims and non-Muslims in France. Thus, this paper highlights the importance of the inequality framework and the tendency to give preference to rights over responsibilities in French Muslim discourses on secularism. Seven Islamic works published between 1994 and 2019 by mainstream-reformist Muslim intellectuals and activists will be analysed, showcasing that the general attitude of Islamic leadership in France is to demand the right to difference and equality, a laïcité that respects the autonomy and freedom to practice religion, including in the public space.

The secularization literature increasingly recognizes the role of historical state-building processes and the manifest agency of sociopolitical actors in shaping public secularity. Based on archival data from the French Third Republic, this article offers three contributions to the historicizing agenda. First, to better capture the contingent and agency-driven nature of secularization, it reoperationalizes the concepts of separation and regulation as contentious strategies of state-building used toward religious authority. Second, it identifies and exemplifies four interrelated yet uneven spheres in which secularization is prompted through governmental action: politico-institutional, socio-pedagogical, symbolic-ideological, and property-distributional. Third, it suggests going beyond viewing secularizing agents as disconnected elites operating independently of grassroots movements. The French case shows that the Republicans' engagement with the pressures of various class forces had a significant impact on their secularizing policies. The analysis advances the study of the mechanisms whereby state-building engenders and mediates secularization as a nonlinear and heterogeneous process.

Im Rahmen der französischen Laizität hat Religionsunterricht an öffentlichen Schulen außer im Elsass und im Departement Moselle keinen Platz, was jedoch nicht bedeutet, dass jegliches Wissen über Religionen ausgeschlossen ist. Seit den 1980er Jahren steht diese Frage wieder zur Diskussion. Im Anschluss an verschiedene Gutachten und vor allem an dasjenige, das Régis Debray im Jahre 2002 vorgelegt hat, wird das Thema Religionen gezielt in unterschiedlichen Fächern behandelt, was Kritik und Kontroversen hervorgerufen hat. Es geht hier darum, diesen in die Lehrpläne aufgenommenen, kulturellen Ansatz sowohl von der konfessionellen Vermittlung einer religiösen Kultur als auch von Forderungen und Belangen, die das Schulleben betreffen, zu unterscheiden, was gleichzeitig Ambitionen und Grenzen eines solchen Ansatzes veranschaulicht. Eine stärkere Berücksichtigung der religiösen Bezüge im Kunstgeschichtsunterricht könnte Vorteile bieten, die bisher ungleich genutzt wurden. Dans le cadre de la laïcité française, une éducation religieuse à caractère confessionnel n’a pas sa place à l’école publique (sauf dans le cas particulier de l’Alsace et de la Moselle), mais cela ne signifie pas que toute connaissance sur les religions soit exclue. Depuis les années quatre-vingt, ce sujet a resurgi dans les débats et, à la suite de plusieurs rapports, dont celui de Régis Debray en 2002, un enseignement des faits religieux a pris place au sein des disciplines scolaires non sans susciter des critiques diverses. Distinguer cette approche culturelle qui passe par les programmes tant d’une forme de culture religieuse catéchétique que des revendications touchant à la vie scolaire en précise les ambitions et les limites. Cela conduit également à évoquer certains atouts, encore inégalement exploités, que pourrait offrir une plus grande prise en compte des faits religieux à travers l’histoire des arts. Under French secularism, religious education of a denominational nature has no place in state schools (except in the special case of Alsace and Moselle), but this does not mean that all knowledge of religions is excluded. Since the eighties, this subject has re-emerged in the debates and, following several reports, including that of Régis Debray in 2002, teaching about religion has been including in the school curriculum, although this has not been without its critics. Distinguishing this cultural approach in the curriculum from both a form of catechetical religious culture and demands relating to school life clarifies its ambitions and limits. This also leads us to mention certain advantages, which are still unevenly exploited, that could be offered by taking greater account of religious facts through the history of the arts.

This article explores Quebec’s recent transition from the “Ethics and Religious Culture” (ERC) program to the “Culture and Citizenship in Quebec” (CCQ) program, emphasizing the role of religious literacy in secular societies. We investigate the rationale behind the shift, and examine the ERC’s focus on fostering understanding of diverse religious and ethical perspectives as well as CCQ’s broader mandate to integrate cultural and civic education and its aim at the development of a shared and common public Quebecois culture. The case study highlights the pedagogical and societal implications of this change, discussing how the CCQ program aims to enhance civic engagement, cultural awareness, and social cohesion. Furthermore, the article identifies opportunities for educators to address pressing global challenges, such as polarization, reconciliation, and the climate crisis, within the new curriculum framework. By promoting critical thinking, inclusivity, and active citizenship, fostering religious literacy in such programs presents a unique opportunity for educators and youth to contribute to a more resilient and harmonious society.

Conflicts involving religion have returned to the forefront of international relations. And yet political scientists and policymakers have continued to assume that religion has long been privatized in the West. This secularist assumption ignores the contestation surrounding the category of the \"secular\" in international politics. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations shows why this thinking is flawed, and provides a powerful alternative. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argues that secularist divisions between religion and politics are not fixed, as commonly assumed, but socially and historically constructed. Examining the philosophical and historical legacy of the secularist traditions that shape European and American approaches to global politics, she shows why this matters for contemporary international relations, and in particular for two critical relationships: the United States and Iran, and the European Union and Turkey.

This paper critically interrogates the French model of secularism (laïcité) and its implications for Muslim women’s rights in contemporary France, particularly within post-colonial and post-secular contexts. It explores how historical legacies of colonial governance continue to inform current regulatory frameworks around religious expression, especially regarding the wearing of Islamic veils in public institutions. While laïcité is officially presented as a principle of neutrality and universalism, its practical enforcement often targets Muslim women, functioning as a mechanism of exclusion that conflates religiosity with political threat. Drawing on intersectional feminist theory and recent debates on post-secularism, the paper examines how dominant feminist movements in France have struggled to incorporate the lived experiences and agency of pious Muslim women, frequently aligning with state-led narratives that instrumentalises gender equality in service of national identity and securitisation. Drawing upon the concept of intersectional post-secularity as discussed in recent scholarship, this article offers a new contextualised framework from within the French system of laïcité for analysing how secular governance, feminist discourse, and colonial legacies converge to regulate Muslim women’s visibility and subjectivity. This approach moves beyond binaries of secularism versus religion and emancipation versus subjugation, offering new insights into the entangled politics of faith, gender, and national identity. Ultimately, the paper calls for feminist and civic discourse that upholds democratic inclusivity, accommodates religious diversity, and resists the racialised governance of Muslim women’s bodies in the name of laïcité.

Abstract In Benin, the general furor surrounding the 2019 legislative elections held without opposition parties caused many to overlook the fact that Ibrahim Ousmane, a well-known imam from Cotonou, was ultimately elected to the National Assembly. His decision to run in the elections had sparked intense debates over political participation, the criteria used to select the community's \"legitimate\" representatives, and, more broadly, the nature of Islamic religious authority in a minority context. In this article, I use the controversy that erupted in 2019 as a starting point for exploring disputes within Benin's Muslim community and the dilemmas of Muslim minority politics. These disputes center on how its members can engage with national politics to promote their collective interests and maintain their political autonomy from the state. The crisis can also be understood in terms of a \"generational\" struggle for religious authority, in a context where there are competing sources of legitimacy.