Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Religion and Multiple Modernities within Islam

Abstract This article presents the overarching theoretical framework and some tentative findings of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project (MMSP). It discusses some of its conceptual tools and presents strategies for studying the role of religion in modern Muslim subjectivity formation. The core rationale of this research program is to explore the role of religious traditions in the construction of modern forms of Muslim subjectivity and social order. It investigates the ways in which Muslims have imagined specifically Islamic modernities in combination with non-religious and globally relevant cultural scripts. In criticizing the alleged Western origin and secular nature of modernity, the MMSP aims at making original contributions both to conceptual discussions of modernity in the study of religions and to our knowledge of modern Muslim societies.