Introduction

Since 9/11 the debate on the compatibility between Islam and Western political and cultural values has become increasingly public. It follows a pattern that Mahmood Mamdani refers to as “cultural talk” in his book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.1 “Cultural talk” is based upon an essentialized approach to Islam as a unified ideology spreading from Europe all the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. In this structure, Muslims are petrified in history and occupy a mold from which they cannot escape, defined by their so-called conformity to the past and their incapacity to address the current challenges of political development and liberal religious thinking. Such an approach justifies the creation of an insurmountable boundary between modern and pre-modern, between secularism and Islam.2