Magic, Islam and Scientific Research

Abstract

Scientific research, especially in the social sciences, is extremely tributary to the ideas and the practices in the societies where researchers live. It is thus that studies conducted on religious phenomena, and notably on Islam, experienced an eclipse characteristic of the sixties and seventies. The reason for this, amongst others, was that the class of intellectuals and politicians were essentially preoccupied with struggles and a social utopia of progress without reference, and even in opposition, to the traditional religious institutions. In an inverse yet equally excessive movement, the eighties and nineties were witness to a veritable explosion of these same studies in the context of identity, political, and social re-vindication, particularly coming from the Muslim world and advocating an overtly religious ideology.