5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The Arab world and the Islamic region after the waves of the Arab Spring are experiencing a transformation in all levels: ideological, social, cultural and value orientations. Perhaps keys to understanding these transformations is the great debate on the issues of religion, public morality, secularism and the civil state. This These debates can be bowled down to polarises many of the main trends in this scene, which can be modelled through four main trends: The first is the radical secular trend that seeks to separate religion from the state, believing that this separation, in the French model, will enable the achievement of a democratic transition and secure coexistence, while the second trend appears radical in sheltering behind Islamic religious values that categorically reject any separation between religion and state, and even consider this separation as a departure from the Islamic religion, while the third trend is located at a critical distance between both previous discourses, calling for "partial secularism in full compatibility between religious systems and universal rights references", and the fourth trend in this model remains worthy of attention.

This session aims to enrich the debate on how religion and secularism interact with the structure of the civil state. We invite participants to submit papers that shed light on local experiences and compare different cultural and political contexts, with the aim of deepening our understanding of current transformations and identifying future prospects for peaceful and fruitful coexistence between religion and secularism in these regions.