Executive Summary
The idea of separating religion from the state in the West did not emerge out of hostility to religion, as opponents of secularism ignorantly claim—or falsely and deliberately slander. Rather, it was a direct response to a catastrophic and complex reality that manifested in three tragic phenomena closely tied to religion, which European societies suffered from for centuries.
In response to such slanders against secularism, this study explores the story of secularism and its historical evolution from its earliest beginnings in the Western world to what it has become today. Our approach relies on objectivity and scientific methodology in reading history, away from personal biases and pre-packaged positions. To understand any human experience or phenomenon—whatever its content—and to grasp its reality objectively, one must place it in its true historical context: its time, place, circumstances, and the interacting causes that produced or contributed to it.
With this logic, we will examine secularism from its earliest beginnings as a philosophical idea until its arrival at its modern political meaning: separating religion from politics / separating religion from the state. This will be addressed through the following axes:
- Introduction
- The Concept and Origins of Secularism
- The Meaning of the Term: What Is Intended Philosophically?
- Manifestations of Secularism in the West
- The Story of Secularism in the West: Its Development and Outcomes
- The Echo of Secularism in the Arab World
- Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek and Secularism
- Secularism in Politics: Its Broad Outlines
- The Position of Islamists Toward Secularism
- The Position of Non-Islamist Arabs Toward Secularism
- Conclusion
Introduction
Secularism is not just a slogan raised as a demand for political change in the Arab reality. The Arab world no longer needs this slogan, since all Arab states have already settled politically on secular systems. However, the form of secularism under discussion here is innocent of the practices of all contemporary Arab regimes without exception.
Secularism, as it arose in the West, was the grand gateway to the Renaissance, freedom, the state of citizenship, democracy, and the rule of law. By contrast, contemporary Arab regimes—with their institutions and figures from top to bottom—represent the height of decay, backwardness, oppression, and tyranny, regardless of the deceptive slogans some raise.
This is not written in defense of secularism against its opponents, for in reality their calls have already been decisively defeated. Yet they persist, stubbornly defending fossilized, pre-packaged ideas imported from outside the spirit of the age. Secularism has achieved a sweeping victory, imposing itself in modern politics as the highest achievement of human thought in the engineering and construction of the modern state. It has become a firmly established fact in our world, with no turning back to pre-secular states.
Rather, the purpose is to uphold the truth and to present the real story of secularism and its path of development from its beginnings to its current settled form. This is a response to the widespread accusations against it in the Arab world: that secularism calls for disbelief, atheism, and the exclusion of religion from human and social life. In the minds of its opponents—whether the common people, pseudo-intellectuals, or even many actual intellectuals—secularism has been falsely equated with disbelief, atheism, moral dissolution, and licentiousness. For them, the secularist is by definition a disbeliever and an atheist—nothing more than baseless fabrications.
This study therefore seeks to trace the historical development of secularism objectively and scientifically, away from prejudice, by placing it in the real conditions that produced it. We will follow its trajectory from its earliest philosophical seeds until its crystallization into a strictly political concept: the separation of religion from politics and from the state.
The Concept and Origins of Secularism
The Arabic term “al-‘ilmaniyya” is a modern translation of the Latin word Saecular, derived from Saeculum meaning “age, generation, century, world, temporal realm.” From this comes the English secularism, meaning worldly or temporal, opposed to “the otherworldly, the metaphysical, the clerical.”
From these roots, secularism is a comprehensive philosophical worldview regarding God, humanity, and nature. It views the world as a temporal, material, perceptible reality—the realm of testimony—while ignoring the unseen metaphysical world.
Secularism holds that the material world contains within itself sufficient evidence, laws, and principles for humanity to understand and explain its phenomena without recourse to theology or the supernatural. In essence, it is a methodology for rational, scientific thinking before it is a fully formed theory.
This methodology was not new: the ancient Greeks knew it centuries earlier. Aristotle, for example, answered many questions of reality outside theological speculation. He believed in God as creator and affirmed divine unity, but argued that God did not interfere in worldly affairs after establishing universal laws governing existence.
The Meaning of the Term: Philosophical Intent
The root “‘ālam” (world) gave rise to the Arabic form “‘ilmaniyya,” first translated from French by Elias Buqtr al-Masri in 1828. It finally stabilized in Arabic as “‘ilmaniyya.”
A secularist is one concerned only with the material world—the visible and tangible—and leaves the unseen, metaphysical realm to other domains of spiritual knowledge such as theology or mysticism.
Thus, the essence of secularism is concern with worldly reality. Its philosophical depth later gave way to a simpler political expression: the separation of religion from the state.
Manifestations of Secularism in the West
Secularism in the West was not born out of hostility to religion, but as a direct response to a catastrophic historical reality expressed in three tragic phenomena:
The Church’s monopoly over knowledge: It imposed clerical culture, persecuted sciences, and considered worldly knowledge heretical—resulting in ignorance and stagnation throughout the Middle Ages.
Tyranny of monarchs: Based on the “divine right of kings,” sanctioned by the Church.
Sectarian religious wars: Civil wars from 1517–1648, costing millions of lives, all justified as “holy wars” by rival churches.
The Story of Secularism in the West: Development and Outcomes
For centuries, Europeans lived under the dual tyranny of Church and Crown, each legitimizing the other. To escape this, reform began with Martin Luther’s movement in 1520, demanding freedom for national churches against the Catholic monopoly in Rome. This led to Protestantism and opened the way to broader intellectual reform.
Enlightenment thinkers—drawing on Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Greco-Roman heritage—championed reason as the source of knowledge, freeing the European mind from clerical control. Their ideas culminated in the French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew monarchy and clerical authority. The revolutionaries declared: “Hang the last king with the entrails of the last priest.”
The Enlightenment thus gave secularism its political form: separation of religion and state. Importantly, both believers and atheists embraced it—though for different reasons. For Christians, it was a return to Christ’s teaching: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” For non-believers, it was liberation of politics from theology.
This synthesis birthed modern secular states, which became the foundation for democracy, citizenship, and the rule of law. Religion was not destroyed: churches remained free to operate spiritually, while the state governed neutrally.
Though critics in the Arab world blame secularism for Western moral decline, the true cause was the rise of capitalism and consumer culture, not secularism itself.
Secularism in the Arab World
Secularism entered Arab debates due to two events:
The fall of the Ottoman Caliphate (1924) under Atatürk, who established a secular Turkish republic. Arab Islamists opposed this, but Turkish elites considered it progress.
The writings of Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek, who in his 1925 book Islam and the Foundations of Government argued that Islam does not prescribe any specific political system. For this, he was tried, expelled from Al-Azhar, and accused of spreading the “heresy” of secularism.
At the same time, Arab modernists advocated secularism as the only way to escape Ottoman-era stagnation, much as Europe had escaped the Middle Ages.
Ali Abdel Razek and Secularism
Abdel Razek insisted that the caliphate was a worldly, not religious, institution—based on force and coercion rather than divine mandate. He argued that Islam as a religion does not require any particular political model. His position exposed the historical truth: the caliphate was never an essential religious pillar but a political arrangement subject to change.
This view was later echoed by scholars like Muhammad Amara, who stressed that Islam deliberately left political systems flexible, to be shaped by human reason and evolving circumstances.
Secularism in Politics: Its Broad Outlines
Secularism in its political sense means:
Religion is for God, the homeland for all.
The people, regardless of faith, are the source of authority.
Full equality in rights and duties under a state of citizenship.
Freedom of belief and recognition of the religious or political “other.”
These principles are inseparable from democracy. Indeed, democracy cannot function without political secularism.
The Position of Islamists
Islamists who accept democracy often do so only tactically, as a path to power. Once in power, they abandon democracy and secularism, invoking the doctrine of ḥākimiyya (rule belongs only to God). This was evident in Egypt after the 2011 revolution, where Islamists openly declared that secularists had no place in society—even though 74% of Egyptians did not vote for them.
The Position of Non-Islamist Arabs
Some non-Islamist Arab intellectuals still reject secularism, treating it as philosophically incompatible with Islam. Yet they offer no viable alternative model. In practice, modern statehood and democracy require secular foundations—whatever a society’s religious identity.
Even leaders associated with political Islam, like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have acknowledged this. Erdoğan stated: “Individuals cannot be secular, but the state must be. Secularism means the state remains neutral toward all beliefs.”
Conclusion
There is no danger to Islam from secularism in this sense. It is not a rival religion, nor a call to atheism, nor a rejection of divine law. A secular state does not deny what God legislated for Muslims or for others. As the Qur’an itself says: “To each of you We prescribed a law and a method” (Al-Mā’idah 5:48). And as the Prophet said: “You are more knowledgeable about the affairs of your worldly life.”
The essence of secularism is simple: “Religion belongs to God, and the homeland belongs to all.”
Secularism and democracy are inseparable. Together, they form the only viable foundation for an Arab civilizational project reconciled with modernity, protecting unity against sectarian, religious, and ethnic strife. Without them, no nation can claim its rightful place among the advanced states of the world.
Muslim-majority states like Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan have already embraced secular democracy, while preserving Islam as faith and identity. The Arab world can do the same.
