Introduction

This chapter discovers how religion plays a role in politics, at least to the extent that Islamic themes are used in Arab political discourse. The author try to approach this goal by means of a biographical study of how Habib Bourguiba, a leader of the Tunisian nationalist movement, expressed himself on the relationship between religion and politics. It is true that most categories developed by modern social sciences are Eurocentric. For example, a basic category of sociology, “class”, developed by studying the changes occurring in Europe during the transition from a feudal to a capitalist system, has not been re-examined in the light of the historical experience of the Arab-Islamic Middle East and North Africa so as to broaden its meaning and relevance. In contrast, history has been the victim of late nineteenth and early twentieth century positivism which confused objectivity with “scientificity” and denied any relationship between the subject (become object) and its student.