262 Islam and Modernity
marked a turning point in the development of personal identity and notions of
the self. These events also coincided with a sense of disillusionment in estab-
lished authority and ideologies that promised future utopias (Wallerstein 2003).
The study of identities and identity politics in these countries occupied a central
role in the social sciences and humanities. In particular, theories of deconstruc-
tion and postmodernism indicated the situational and constructed nature of
identities. The imagined nature of national and other primordial identities
was exposed, and their fragile and constructed dimensions were highlighted
(Zygmunt Bauman 1996; Gerd Baumann 1999). Taking due cognisance of dif-
ferences in politics, culture and global location between Europe, the Americas
and Muslim societies, some important bases can be identifi ed for providing
insights from the one to shed light on the other.
Taking a cue from postmodernism and deconstruction, this chapter
explores the constructivist nature of modern Islamic identities. The focus
of the chapter rests on specifi cally religious identities, keeping in mind that
Muslims at any given time also share identities in relation to class, national-
ity, ethnic origin and gender. Islamic identities as religious identities cannot
be completely detached from their cultural and historical contexts. Religious
identities, even if they are self-consciously related to primordial and timeless
dimensions, can and must be situated. And in this way, they become some-
times indistinguishable from these other ‘more secular’ identities of individuals
and groups. The multi-dimensional nature of identities is taken for granted
here, but the complexity of the religious identities is further examined in
closer detail. This chapter explores religious identities, and applies to them the
insights of deconstruction.
Two theoretical foundations are employed to introduce the constructed
nature of modern Muslim identities. The fi rst comes from the highly acclaimed
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and the second from the refl ections
of Frantz Fanon. Taylor elaborated on the constructive nature of identities,
produced through dialogues with the past and the present. At the same time,
he argued that Western identity was not completely adrift without any specifi c
direction or content. He tried to chart a middle course between those who
argued that identities were given and primordial, and those who were merely
interested in pointing to their arbitrary construction (Taylor 1989, 1991, 1992;
Abbey 2000). One of Taylor’s important insights about modern identities that
he emphasised, and that is often forgotten, was its foundation in the birth of
modernity and the Enlightenment tradition. According to him, the notion of
identity cannot be separated from the emergence of a modern, egalitarian state.
Identity became important when the state left behind a status-based system for
the different classes to which an individual belonged. Among the intellectuals
of the French Revolution, Taylor (1992: 49) recalled Rousseau as the one who
unconditionally rejected the honour system of the ancien régime, to be replaced by