Engaging in a Secularized Public Sphere – a Possible Qur’anic Perspective?

Abstract

For Habermas, social cohesion in liberal democratic societies is created and ensured by public discourse, which creates and regulates democratic virtues through non-hierarchical communication in which all citizens participate equally. According to the understanding of post-secularism, this public discourse must be secular. This requires religious citizens to translate religious arguments into secular ones in public discourse. However, it remains an open question to what extent religious citizens in plural societies can or want to participate in such a communication process based on their religious self-understanding. In this article, an attempt will be made to investigate this question, at least within the Islamic faith tradition. A Qur’anic narrative will be examined for possible indications of how the Qur’an conceives communication with those of different worldviews. The analyzed narrative reveals perspectives of understanding from which remarkable contributions to social cohesion can be derived.