The religion in M.G.S. Hodgson's concept of history and society: Islamicated civilization

The main problem in the Venture of Islam is following the conscious choices of humanity and their cumulative consequences, in other words, the course of social change and cultural structuring. Hodgson believes that such a pursuit of Islamic civilization may have a meaning for humanity as long as it is first and foremost seeks to address the history of Islam with all aspects of humanity. This approach puts the historian in a unique position in the studies of Islamic history driven by orientalist. He evaluated a new notion called "islamicate" or "islamicated", used as main key in the Venture of Islam for the explication of a new civilization. According to Hodgson, Islamicated society can be understood through two different aspects: religion and civilization. In the most general sense, the establishment of the connection between man and the cosmos is what makes the results of the dominance of different cultural elements religious in the general framework of world history. Religiosity, which is considered as a reflection of the spiritual tendency of humanity, cannot assume an identity independent from sociocultural conditions. At this point, Hodgson sets out to identify the "religious and cultural traditions" of Islamicated society. According to him, the civilization, which was first born in Fertile Crescent and surrounded the Nile to Oxus region where the Iranian-Semitic cultural composition took place, cannot be explained by the fact of pure Islam. Islam has been able to penetrate the long-established traditions that existed in this vast region only through the continuity of culture and dialogue. This process resulted the Islamicisation of civilization, which led the cultural objects of Islamic civilization representing the culmination of religious and cultural traditions. In this respect, Islam is not considered as the constituent element of Islamicated civilization in the Venture of Islam. Keywords: Islamic civilization, World history, orientalism, religious tradition, Venture of Islam