Islam and Civil Society. Mediation between the State and Religion

Abstract

I intend to analyze the process through which Islam is being incorporated into the political debate concerned with the future shape of relation between the state and society, as well as secular West and modernizing Islamic East. I wish to argue that civil society in Middle East is marked by significant turn towards reislamization and politicization effecting from the concern with the formation of the Muslim nation-states in this region. I focus on the role of religion in the process through which civil society is being shaped and the power structures in the Middle East are being justified. I point out two parallel mechanizms constitutive for the formation of civil society in this region: objectification, understood as religious awareness, and fragmentation, which effects from decreasing role of religious authorities in providing “the right and only” interpretation of religion, caused by an acces to variety of interpretations delivered by mass media.