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Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Politics has two main goals. Firstly, it aims to provide a platform for the burgeoning scholarship on religion and politics that cannot find visibility within the constricted boundaries of either religious studies or political science. Secondly, it seeks to examine topics that are intensely debated in the public space from an objective, data-driven perspective. In doing so, it will offer alternatives to ideological or partisan positions particularly within hotly debated topics such as violence and politics, human rights, or democracy and secularism. In order to achieve these goals, the series will give priority to research that addresses contemporary debates on religion and politics in a particular national or regional context or in a comparative way across religions or political contexts.
This article analyzes the political consequences of the “War on Terror” on the status of Islam in European public spaces, especially restriction of religious activities and practices. These restrictions are interpreted as the outcomes of a securitzation process, constructing Islam as an existential threat that requires extraordinary and emergency procedures outside the bounds of regular political procedure.
Abstract
The main argument of this paper is that the sacred time and space of the nation has displaced the meaning of sacredness of the religious sites, and legitimized the national community. By comparing the Temple Mount and Ayodhya disputes, the paper exposes the tensions between two polarities, sacred/profane and religious/political, which helps explain the influence of national identities on the contested sacredness of religious sites. The competition over the Temple Mount is nested within a “thicker” context of conflicting political claims over Jerusalem and national territory between Jewish groups on one hand and between Jews and Muslims on the other. The Ayodhya disagreement is related to the political tensions between the dominant and the minority religions, which have turned the religious dispute over a holy site into a debate on the sacredness of the national community.
The series welcomes manuscripts based on recent original research (whether involving fieldwork, archival work, surveys, or other methods) in a particular national or regional setting or in a comparative way across religions or political contexts. Manuscripts typically range from 35,000 to 40,000 words, but could also extend to 80,000 words. The book series does not publish edited volumes.
Until 2020, Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Politics was also published as a journal.