Feasibility Study of Religious Lifeworld in Secular Age: A Critique of Secular Foundations in Taylor's Thought with Emphasis on Islamic Architecture
Subject Areas : Islamic theology
1 - Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran.
Keywords: Religious lifeworld, secular age, Charles Taylor, Islamic architecture, spatial monotheism.,
Abstract :
The present study examines the possibility of realizing a religious lifeworld in the secular age and, by criticizing Charles Taylor’s anthropocentric solution (reviving spiritual resources within the framework of Christianity or non-secular humanism), analyzes the capacity of Islamic architecture as a metaphysical alternative to overcome the limitations of secular discourse. This research, using an interdisciplinary method (combining philosophical hermeneutics, Lefebvre’s spatial analysis, and Islamic wisdom), criticizes Charles Taylor’s solution to the crises of the secular age - including atomized individualism, instrumental rationality, and the decline of the sacred. The findings show that Taylor’s solution (reviving spiritual resources within the framework of Christianity or non-secular humanism) is unable to provide a radical alternative to humanism due to three fundamental limitations: reliance on natural theology, relativism of truth, and neglect of revelation as a program of good life. In contrast, Islamic architecture, by manifesting the three principles of unity in plurality (centrality of the mosque and orientation to the Qibla), privacy balance (hierarchy of public/private space in courtyard houses), and moral economy (structural link between the market and the mosque), not only objectifies the non-secular lifeworld, but also, by substituting monotheism for humanism (symbolizing the dome as divine lordship, light as the manifestation of the light of lights), offers a metaphysical alternative to remedy the spatial crises of the secular age (anonymity, commodification of space, social disintegration).
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