Mapping Post-Secular Islamic Liberation Theology

Abstract

This article argues that the post-secular turn is the new social analysis that shapes the politics of the impoverized^[1] in Islamic liberation theology. In this article, I suggest that, given the essentialism and determinism characterizing much of the contemporary studies of religion and secularism, a direct articulation of a post-secular approach from an Islamic liberation theology perspective is both inevitable and necessary. Such an approach can offer new meaning for both religion and secularism by engaging with the hegemony of secularism in relation to the state and society to envision a politics of the impoverized.

[1]    The article uses the term ‘impoverized’, although at a superficial glance it is merely the British English variant of ‘impoverished’, which usually denotes a temporary condition of being poor, usually caused by recent circumstances. The term is spelled with a ‘z’ not so much because it is the American version, but the pronunciation denotes that the poor are not merely a social category, but exists as a product of an economic system that systematically produces the condition of poverty. By using ‘impoverized’ rather than ‘the poor’ or the ‘impoverished’, the agency of that economic system is foregrounded to highlight a process of impoverization.