Secularizing Islamists?

“Based on rich ethnography and written with historical and theoretical imagination, this riveting book offers a timely and subtle contribution to our understanding of the place and impact of religion in public life. Humeira Iqtidar’s resonant accounts of the origins, diversity, and role of gender in Pakistan’s Islamist movements, and her deep insight that secularization can be underpinned by social forces that combat secularism, force a reconsideration of long-held concepts and convictions about politics and belief.”

“The real strength of Secularizing Islamists? is the depth of its empirical research, both historical and anthropological—there is no other work that brings such a range of materials to a study of Islamism in contemporary Pakistan. Here, Humeira Iqtidar offers a compelling historical argument that demonstrates how Islamist movements in Pakistan have long relied upon processes of social and political secularization. This important book will have a wide readership across the social sciences and humanities and will be of interest to students of South Asian history and culture, the history of secularism, modern and contemporary Islamic studies, as well as policy professionals worldwide who are concerned with Islamic radicalism.”

“At the heart of this book is an incongruous question: what would happen if we analyzed Islamists (who define themselves in almost polar opposition to ‘secularism’) as products of a process of ‘secularization’? What happens is not a definitive new interpretation of Islamism, but rather the suggestion of a range of new questions and perspectives for looking at Islamist thinking in its political and everyday contexts. Broad, original, and interdisciplinary, this book will find an important audience among a large number of scholars who have long struggled to make sense of the Islamist phenomenon.”