Islam in a Post-Secular Society

Dustin J. Byrd, Ph.D. (2016), Michigan State University, is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Olivet College in Michigan. He has published monographs, edited volumes and many articles on both Islam and the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory. His latest book, Malcolm X: From Political Eschatology to Religious Revolutionary, was co-edited with Seyed Javad Miri (Haymarket, 2017).

• PrefaceAcknowledgements1. Professing Islam in a Post-Secular SocietyIntroductionOn the Contemporary Possibility of Witnessing and ProfessingThe Post-Secular SocietyWhat does it mean to Profess Islam?Witnessing In Islam: on the Tradition of Radical PraxisNew Religion as Return of the OldWitnessing in the Time of War‘Perfected Religion’: A Problematic ConceptionFear of Philosophical Blaspheme2. Adversity in Post-Secular EuropeThe Dialectics of Martyrdom: Death as Witnessing and ProfessingWitnessing Against Islam: The Case of Theo van GoghJe ne suis pas Charlie et je ne suis pas avec les terrorists3. Finding a Common Language13th Century Witnessing: Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-KamilDifferent Francis, Same Mission: Witnessing with and for MuslimsTranslation Proviso: Can We Witness and Confess in the Same Language?Cognitive-Instrumental Reason, Moral-Practical Reason and Aesthetic-Expressive Reason in ReligionTranslation DangersSecular Entrenchment4. Witnessing and Confessing in Prophetic and Positive ReligionsAffirmation and Negativity: MarxAffirmation and Negativity: LeninAffirmation and Negativity: Horkheimer and AdornoConfronting the Post-Secular ConditionProphetic and Priestly Religion5. After Auschwitz: Islam in EuropeViolence and the Post-SecularViolence and the StateFreud’s Unbehagen mit MarxWitnessing and Professing in a Nietzschian Age of NihilismWitnessing and Professing After Auschwitz: Theodor Adorno’s PoeticsHistory and Metaphysics after AuschwitzEthics after AuschwitzWitnessing the Messianic: The Case of the Martyr Walter BenjaminA Place for TheologyMessiah, Messianic and the HistorianBenjamin’s Critique of Progress: Witnessing History as Barbarity6. Post-Secularity and its Discontents: The Barbaric Revolt against BarbarismAbsolutivityAuthoritarian Absolutes, Heteronomy, and the Islamic State in Iraq and SyriaHumanistic AbsolutesISIS: Same Problem, Different ManifestationsAmerican and Euro-JihadisHegel, War and IndividualismISIS and Western AlienationInternationalismSeeking Heaven at the Barrel of a GunMaterial Poverty or Poverty of Being?Genealogy of TerrorSymbolic MessageReign of Terror: Bourgeois and MuslimThe Perverse Dialectic of ApologyHypocritical Apologetics and the Recovery of the Prophetic7. The Globalized Post-Secular Society and the Future of IslamFrom the West to the RestTheocracy as a Response to the Globalized Post-Secular SocietyPost-Secular Solidarity: A Proposal for an Intra-religious ConstitutionalismEcumenisms and Inter-Religious Constitution Building: Modern SlaveryConclusionReferencesIndex