Religious difference in a secular age : a minority report /

This discussion of Coptic Christians in Egypt offers a timely critique of contemporary notions of secularism. Mahmood (anthropology, Univ. of California, Berkeley) demonstrates how perspectives that are largely Protestant result in ill-fitting assumptions about secularism, but she shows the importance of honoring the limits of this approach rather than rejecting it altogether. The strengths and shortcomings of this book echo the author's concerns: it presents local religious practice through a discussion of history, laws, and texts, but the conclusions resonate with more general issues of secularity. In expanding her close readings of legal and cultural situations in Egypt to more global issues, the author provides insight into how questions debated in the West are both similar to and different from--in important ways--those relevant in Egypt. Mahmood validates the importance of remaining mindful of multiple secularities, dislodging the notion of the "secular" as a simple neutral perspective to adjudicate religious, ethnic, and political identities. The book's focus on Coptic Christians makes it an excellent companion to Hussein Ali Agrama's Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt (2012). Mahmood's presentation of Coptic Christian struggles highlights why the secular remains a contentious and relevant site for inquiry. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Daniel R. Boscaljon, independent scholar

Mahmood (Politics of Piety) explores secularism by considering the situation of religious minorities in Egypt. For Mahmood, secularism contains an intense irony, in that the supposed inability of the state to dictate religion leaves few avenues for minorities to redress grievances. Looking at the situation of Coptic Christians and Bahais, she persuasively argues that religious conflict in Egypt is not a result of too little secularization but a clear consequence of secularity. Perhaps the strongest chapter covers family law, where she shows how secularism's relegating religion to the private sphere intensifies religion's control over the other key elements of private life-especially gender and sexuality. Her work contains enough history of Egyptian politics to show how secularism is both an imposed norm of European colonialism and a development internal to Islam. In crisp prose, Mahmood convincingly shows that secularism's promise for equal protection under the law for all religious believers has deeply shaped the modern world, despite the ways in which secularism itself thwarts this hope. This book challenges Western perceptions of the Middle East while deeply questioning the ability of secularism to live up to its promises. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.