A Quiet Tsunami

Abstract

Both scholars and the general public have tended to assume that Islam is immune to modernization and secularization and that Muslims are all fanatical religionists. However, the growing and increasingly active number of nonbelievers in Muslim-majority countries has been called a tsunami by religious authorities. This article surveys the current research on nonreligion and atheism in Islam-dominated countries, with special attention to Egypt. After examining the statistical information on nonbelief, including in unlikely places such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, the article considers the terminology of nonbelief in Arabic, which is not equivalent to English terminology and illustrates the local nature of nonreligion, constructed in relation to local concepts of religion. The article then discusses the social and legal perils of nonbelievers in societies still committed to religious belief and finally investigates the lives and activities of nonbelievers and atheists, individually, in groups, and online. The article concludes with some reflections on modernization and secularization, noting the forces that have made nonbelief more possible and prevalent in Muslim-majority contexts but also led to multiple specific secularities and atheisms.