Israeli Jew here. And I think that's a bit unfair. There's a critical difference between Islam and Christianity, and it bears nothing, because without grasping

Israeli Jew here. And I think that's a bit unfair. There's a critical difference between Islam and Christianity, and it bears nothing, because without grasping this detail you can't really give Islam a fair understanding. Secularism in the Christian World is the result of peacemaking after the Wars of Religion. It's 1648, you want Christians to stop killing each other. Since this involves a religion whose followers engaged in near-genocidal wars over the inclusion of the word "filiouque" in one creed, you agree on a peace deal where the two sides agree to avoid all God-talk altogether. Voila, secularism. Meanwhile, you have several chapters in Muslim history where Sunni and Shia decide to have peace, for the sake of a prosperous humane existence. You get a lot of the same things: a flowering of art and scholarship. An improvement of daily life. Pluralism. A golden age, if you will. However, Sunni and Shia (and others) have a lot of God-talk in common that has never provoked any dispute. The wording of the daily prayer and so much more. So you get all the benefits that European history associated with secularism, as above, but everyone keeps on with putting inshallah, alhamdullillah, astagfirullah, et cetera in every sentence. That's why there's not really a secular strain in Arabic culture.