The Secular State's Islamic Empire

Muslim Spaces and Subjects of Jurisdiction in Paris and Algiers, 1905-1957

Bibliographic Data

ID2108575
AuthorsJill Mcdougall (0000-0002-6094-8050, corresponding author), James Mcdougall
Year2010
Volume52
Issue3
Pages553-580
Publication date2010-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417510000307
OpenAlexW2315851040
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited29

In an article published posthumously, in theRevue de la Méditerranéein 1951, Augustin Berque, the intellectually accomplished but professionally somewhat unrecognized former Director of Native Affairs at the Government-General of Algeria, examined difficulties in the public management of religious affairs, and the failures of policy toward successive, competing spokesmen for Islam in France's colonial possessions. In concluding his assessment of this thorny question, Berque addressed his reader as in an imaginary dialogue: 'And so? Oh, I quite agree with you! The one great remedy is ourlaïcité, which would leave to the Faith its secret oratory, intimate and inviolable. But [what are we to do] in the meantime?' There remained at the time a tenacious assumption that the empire, at least in Africa, might still endure into the unforeseeable future and that institution of a rational, public secularism as a lasting benefit of France'srayonnement civilisationnelcould still be anticipated as an ultimate goal. But, of course, 'the meantime' was in fact all the time that Berque and his colleagues had, and it was running out much faster than they imagined. That as late as 1951 the well-informed, scholarly, and policymaking readers of theRevuecould still be expected to imagine the relationship between imperial and Islamic authority in these terms suggests an extraordinary capacity for self-delusion, or a remarkable intractability in the terms of a debate that had been near the top of the colonial policy agenda for almost half a century

Colonialism · Empire · Faith · Government (linguistics) · Institution · Islam · Jurisdiction · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Secularism · Sociology · State (computer science) · The Imaginary · Theology · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · North African History and Literature · Philosophy · Political and Social Issues · Psychology · Religious studies

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