The debate on Islam and secularism in Egypt

Dr. Mustafa al-Nashshar disputes the Tanwiriyyun's premise that every advocate of enlightenment is a secularist, and every secularist is an advocate of enlightenment. Although they were linked together during certain periods of the Western Renaissance, enlightenment and secularism had different origins, al-Nashshar asserts. The result of this linkage, which liberated the Western mind from the hegemony of the Church, has been progress in the sciences, politics, economics and the arts. But despite this historical linkage, many Western thinkers, like Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) and Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), have lamented the fact that spiritual and moral development has not kept pace with material progress. They warn that unless the balance between the two is restored, the downfall of Western civilization is inevitably coming, he contends. Thus Western enlightenment in the Twentieth Century is no longer tied to secularism; it stresses the role of religion and moral thought in human life, and the development of religious and spiritual consciousness has become in the eyes of Western advocates of enlightenment one of the foundations of modern education.(42)


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