Most certainly, one exceeds all bounds once they think they are self-sufficient.
Qur’an 96: 6-7
Secularism is a legitimation and system of fetishization. Fetishization is the process wherein that which is man-made appears to be absolute, divine, and closed. I want to focus on this last feature – closure – as it is the hallmark of the fetishized order. The act of closure is the illusion that the order is self-sufficient; its legitimacy and logic are entirely immanent. This is the negation of exteriority, wherein exteriority means that which is beyond the self or the order. To illustrate, consider the idea of a free-market in Capitalism. The logic of Capitalism is the idea that the market is entirely self-sufficient. The Qu’ran refers to this as istigna, or self-sufficiency. The order then appears as though its forged social contract created man ex nihilo. Secularism is fetishization, more so, the philosophy of fetishization in that it conceives of itself as a self-enclosed totality, declaring the sovereignty not of a uniquely transcendent God but the world, the dunyā. The idea of the world as a sealed-off totality legitimates the idea of the political space as an autonomous space of action, which in turn renders the political space a space of pure power.
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