Europe’s Encounter with Islam: The Secular and the Postsecular

In the last few years, Muslim presence in Europe has been increasingly perceived as ‘problematic’. Examining events such as the French ban on headscarves in public schools, the publication of the so-called ‘Danish cartoons’ satirizing the Prophet Mohamed, and the speech of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg, Luca Mavelli argues that this perspective has prevented an in-depth reflection on the limits of Europe’s secular tradition and its role in Europe’s conflictual encounter with Islam. Through an original reading of Michel Foucault’s spiritual notion of knowledge and an engagement with key European thinkers, from Thomas Aquinas to Jurgen Habermas, Mavelli articulates a contending genealogy of European secularity. He suggests that Europe’s secular tradition has also contributed to forms of isolation, which translate into Europe’s incapacity to perceive its encounter with Islam as an opportunity rather than a threat. Drawing on this theoretical perspective, the work offers a contending account of some the most important recent controversies surrounding Islam in Europe and investigates the ‘postsecular’ as a normative model to engage with the tensions and isolation at the heart of European secularity. Accordingly, it explores the possibility of a Europe willing to reconsider its established secular narratives, which may identify in the encounter with Islam an opportunity to flourish and cultivate its democratic qualities and postnational commitments. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of religion and international relations, social and political theory and Islam in Europe.