“Marx said that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps things are very different. It may be that revolutions are the act by which the human race traveling in the train applies the emergency brake.” I would like to answer the question in the title by way of offering some thoughts on postsecular paradigms to encourage collective reflections on Walter Benjamin’s above critique of the idea of progress, and what it entails regarding the humanities, Islamophobia, area studies and the locations of universalism.

Please review in advance Jens Hanssen’s review of Wael B. Hallaq’s Restating Orientalism, available online at:

https://www.academia.edu/38410193/The_Incoherence_of_the_Incoherence_of_Orientalism_