Decolonising the Sociology of Religion

Abstract

The sociology of religion has been predominantly shaped by Eurocentric and Christocentric frameworks that universalise Western historical experiences while marginalising non-Western religious traditions. This article advances a decolonial intervention by engaging the thought of Malik Bennabi to construct an alternative sociology of religion grounded in Islamic epistemology. Rather than treating Bennabi’s work as normative, the article articulates his ideas as a constructive sociological paradigm that addresses colonial domination at the epistemic level, particularly through the colonisation of ideas and modes of knowledge production. Positioned within decolonial and postcolonial scholarship, the study places Bennabi in dialogue with classical sociological theories of religion and decolonial thinkers such as Anibal Quijano, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Syed Hussein Alatas. Relying on Bennabi’s key texts, the article demonstrates how his framework integrates revelation, reason, and social reality within a unified civilisational perspective. The article argues that education constitutes the operational core of Bennabi’s paradigm. Conceived as a holistic-integrative civilisational strategy, education functions to liberate the mind, restore moral agency, and overcome epistemic dependency. By foregrounding education, the article contributes to the sociology of the Islamic Golden Age and offers a coherent model for a decolonised sociology of religion that moves beyond critique toward paradigm construction.