Axial civilizations, multiple modernities, and Islam

Abstract

Departing from the modernization theory, S.N. Eisenstadt proposed the idea of ‘post-traditional societies’ in the early 1970s, and proceeded to formulate the concepts of ‘axial civilizations’ and ‘multiple modernities’ in the following decades. In the 1980s, Eisenstadt sketched a model of constant tension between an Islamic primordial utopia — the ideal of the Golden Age of pristine Islam— and the historical reality of patrimonial Sultanism, coexisting with an autonomous public sphere protected by Islamic law and dominated by the religious elite, the ulema. The main feature of this model was the oscillation between military regimes with limited pluralism and puritanical fundamentalism. Eisenstadt further emphasized the degree of autonomy of the religious elite as the carriers of Islam in relation to the ruler and political power as a determinant of the strength of their civilizational impact. Islam remained confined to the religious sphere in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, where the religious elite lacked autonomy, but had a much broader civilizational impact in the Middle East and North Africa, where the ulema developed greater autonomy. The article shows Eisenstadt’s subsequent influence by discussion of the application by other sociologists of civilizational analysis to Islam in a comparative perspective, and of multiple modernities to contemporary Islam.