What is Secularism

The question of the correlation between Islam, political Islam, and liberal democracy has so far been the most exposed topic in exploring the democratic capacity of political Islam and Islamic societies in general. What is particularly intriguing about the relationship between political Islam and liberal democracy is the fact of its Westernized triviality that has received a pejorative tone in Islamic political circles. The following chapter analyzes the relationship of political Islam to specific inherent categories of liberal democracy such as the rule of law, representative government, the separation of powers, and secularism as differentia specifica of liberal Western democratic discourse. This chapter argued how appropriate tangent or divergence is illustrated and how this is reflected in the general ideological positioning of political Islam towards the liberal democracy in the Muslim countries through an axiological and praxeological perspective.