Secularism and Political Islam in Syria. Does (Political) Islam constitute an obstacle to the secularization process of Syria?

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 1,0, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, course: Modernity and Islam - Status of Relationship: 'It's Complicated', language: English, abstract: In this paper it will be examined that Islam is a stumbling block in the way of the secularization process in Syria. Syria is choosen firsty, because many scholars and writers actually claim that Syria is already a secularist country which is a highly controversial and debatable claim. Secondly, because the (political) Islam in Syria does not have the same power it has in other Muslim Arabic countries and this makes Syria a somehow good candidate for becoming a secularist country. This paper contains four main chapters and it is structured as follows: After the introduction, in the first chapter secularism and secularization is briefly defined and then it will explained why the religion Islam and the (political) Islam cannot be separated. In the second chapter it is presented the point of view which says that Islam is deep inside incompatible with secularism. On the contrary side, namely in the third chapter, it is presented the other point of view which claims that Islam can very well come along with secularism. The fourth chapter will be the conclusion. Furthermore, a connection with Syria based on the content of the chapters will be made at the end of the first and the last chapter.