Critical Muslims in the context of critiques of 'Religion' as an analytical category

Here is a cross-link to my guest contribution to the blog maintained by the Critical Religion Association at the University of Stirling:

Critical  Muslims by Carool Kersten

seeks to understand what we are thinking about when we think about religion: for example, why has much of western culture identified one particular kind of ritual as ‘religious’ whilst other kinds of ritual are seen as ‘secular’ (such as military parades). Not all cultures make these divisions, but the dominance of western cultural norms around the world from the colonial era onwards has impacted in profound ways on how people globally think about these issues. Critical Religion examines religion from a positive critical standpoint, with a view to showing how open to re-interpretation or re-conceptualisation the term ‘religion’ is today in our intellectual, social, and cultural spheres. We try to do this in ways that seek out and identify the limits of the language we employ so that we can move beyond these limiting terms and concepts.

Seek