Irfan Ahmad on Islam today
If Immanuel Kant was the “Papa Enlightenment Subject,” a phrase used by anthropologist William Mazzarella, literary critic Edward Said was arguably a loyal child of that Enlightenment. Credited with coining secular criticism, Said also viewed himself as a secular critic. Notably, the introduction and conclusion to his
The World, The Text and the Critic are titled respectively as “Secular Criticism” and “Religious Criticism.” Lamenting that the contemporary critics had become “cleric,” Said invoked the Enlightenment for critique to “become a truly secular enterprise.” In formulations like Said’s, critique, far removed from religion, resided solely and in a sharply different realm called secular.