Centring the Islamicate: New Understandings of Religious/Secular and Traditional/Modern Dichotomies

This thesis is an exploration of the impact that Orientalist/colonial epistemologies have
had on contemporary understandings of Islam. Specifically, this work will look at the
effect that two dichotomies have had on the Islamicate worldview: religion/secularism
and the traditional/modern. Whilst the effects of the religion/secularism dichotomy
have been well documented in previous literature, the traditional/modern dichotomy
has been relatively neglected. A detailed mapping of the imposition, and subsequent
function, of the two dichotomies both from Orientalists, as well as an importing of the
dichotomies by members of the Islamicate is needed. This will show why both of these
dichotomies need to be replaced by concepts which place the Islamic(ate) at their
heart. This process will begin by introducing the categories of (fundamentalist)
declinism and ethicism to replace traditionalism and modernism. A series of
foundational questions for declinism and ethicism will also be advanced. The second
part of this process will be the invention of replacement for religion/secularism. For
religion, an already existing alternative, Islam as language, will be adopted. As for
secularism, Reconstructionism, a concept whose main purpose will be to manage intra-
Islamicate difference, shall replace it. The implications of all of these changes will be
discussed with pointers towards further research.