Liberalism's distinctive policy for governing Muslim populations: Human rights, religious reform, and counter-terrorism from the colonial era until the present

Abstract

During the colonial era, liberal Western states established vast empires which came to encompass almost all of the world's Muslims. Western states worked out specific methods for governing Muslims, which were often referred to as “Muslim policy”. Recent scholarship on Muslim policy exhibits several key trends. One is expansion of geographical scope, leading scholars to produce more comprehensive global accounts of Muslim policy. Another trend is expansion of temporal scope, leading scholars to systematically link colonial Muslim policy with the governance of Muslims in the post-colonial era. A final trend is the reevaluation of liberal governance. Accordingly, scholars argue that, contrary to conventional assumptions, liberal ideology allows for - or even encourages - imperialism, authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and racism. The present article makes several new contributions. It provides a synthesis of recent studies on Muslim policy - giving special attention to the key trends mentioned above. Moreover, the article proposes a novel way of conceptualizing Muslim policy. It is argued that Muslim policy centers on three overlapping projects: (1) a “human rights” project (2) a “religious reform” project and (3) a security project akin to what is now known as “counter-terrorism”. Finally, the article argues that liberals created Muslim policy in the colonial era, and continue to champion it in the post-colonial era. As such, it may be regarded as a distinctive long-standing liberal policy for governing Muslim populations.