**1. Introduction**

The claim that the Middle East could be described as postsecular seems to be counterintuitive. An alleged lack of secularization, a number of deadly conflicts concerning religion, and authoritarian restrictions on public discourse seem to foreclose any meaningful application of the concept to the region. My claim is that an authoritarian version of interreligious pluralism became the postsecular alternative to pan-Arabic secularism and Political Islam-Islamism and Post-Islamism.

The postsecular approach is understood as an analytical tool to observe but also as a normative framework to evaluate an expanding integration of diverse social and religious strata into the public discourse without providing a comprehensive, homogenizing doctrine. Based on these analytical and normative considerations, the Middle East can be called postsecular, if all kinds of religious and non-religious citizens can participate equally in public and politics, as long as they do not intend to reshape society and state on the basis of a homogenizing political creed of their faith. While this normative benchmark cannot be detected in a full sense, an authoritarian move in that direction can be observed in countries such as Egypt or the UAE, organized and connected by transnational elites. The most impressive step within this authoritarian postsecularism was achieved in Abu Dhabi in 2019 when the Document on Human Fraternity (Francis and al-Tayyib 2019) was signed by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayeb. This article's second part will elaborate on these examples to show how the expansion of the postsecular approach to authoritarian power politics of becoming could help us to understand the Middle East.

The argumen<sup>t</sup> is embedded in the broad and ongoing critical debate on secularism and secularization theory that has been pioneered, among others, by such diverse thinkers as Talal Assad (Asad 2003), Jose Casanova (Casanova 1994), Charles Taylor (Taylor 2007), or Peter Berger (Berger 1999), who

allowed, broadly speaking, in their critical examination of the historical development of secularism and secularization theory, a fresh look on alternative frameworks, global trends of desecularization, and the vitality of religion in public.

Methodologically, this article draws on two thinkers within these debates: Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 2006, 2008) and William Connolly (Connolly 1999). Jürgen Habermas has introduced a sophisticated and widely discussed concept of a postsecular society that frames the theoretical background of this study. As it informs, in an adapted version, the basic ideas of my argument, a short reminder of Habermas' concept and its critical discussion opens up the discussion of the first part. This opening serves also as a starting point for a historical analysis that draws attention to the emergence of a public sphere through transnational religious intellectuals within the power politics of authoritarian rulers.

On this crucial point, William Connolly's term "politics of becoming" (Connolly 1999, p. 51) will support my argumen<sup>t</sup> based on a critical reading of Habermas. As will be elaborated, Connolly has a normative idea of change and transformation, which he calls "politics of becoming" and which includes a vision of society of deep di fferences that can nevertheless develop strong social fabrics. However, Connolly is well aware that such a transformation does not often go smoothly and rarely manages to integrate the consensual participation of everyone. Expanding this concept, one could speak about power politics of becoming.
