Majlis Talk: The Muslims Who Wanted Less Religion

MAJLIS @ ANU

THE MUSLIMS WHO WANTED LESS RELIGION: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF SECULARISM IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Secularism in Muslim societies is often described as an essentially Western idea, imported through colonialism or imposed by modernising states. Yet this familiar narrative overlooks the Muslim intellectuals who themselves questioned the place of religion in politics, education, law, and public life. This talk turns to the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Caucasus, where a new generation of Muslim intellectuals encountered Islamic traditions alongside Russian and European ideas of progress, science, liberty, and reason. Some of the intellectuals argued not against religion itself, but against its authority over every sphere of social and political life. Others went considerably further, openly challenging religious institutions and established beliefs. Focusing on these debates and the intellectual networks connecting the Caucasus with Russia, Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Europe, the talk explores secularism not simply as an imported doctrine, but as a contested idea that Muslim thinkers actively debated, reshaped, and sometimes embraced on their own terms.

Dr. Turkay Gasimova is a historian and Lecturer at Miyazaki International University in Japan. She holds a PhD in Intellectual History from the European University Institute in Florence. Her research focuses on the intellectual and political history of the Caucasus and the wider Middle East, with particular interests in Muslim intellectuals, democracy, gender, empire, and the relationship between natural resources and political development. She was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at California State University, Fullerton, where she spent an academic year conducting research in American Studies. Gasimova has also held research and teaching positions at the University of Padova, Central European University, ELTE Budapest, the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, and Baku State University.

DETAILS 
10-11am Friday 
11 September 2026 
CAIS Lecture Theatre 
Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia)