In the wake of the Arab Spring, the prospect of Islamist rule has worked to galvanize opposition from secular intellectuals and political activists. As a result, recent years have seen secularism assume an increasingly prominent place in public discourses on politics and social life. The ideas of the late Egyptian intellectual Abdelwahab Elmessiri (d.2008) have a central place in current Arab debates over secularism. Elmessiri articulates his views in the acclaimed 2002 work “Partial Secularism and Comprehensive Secularism” (Al-‘Almaniyya al-Juz’iyya wa-l-‘Almaniyya al-Shamila), which has already gone through at least four printed editions and is also widely circulated on the internet. Elmessiri’s text provides a critical conceptual and sociological analysis of secularism, particularly in relationship to the Arab Muslim world. Elmessiri’s views reflect an Islamist perspective, but one which is markedly liberal in character. Given its 800-page length and fairly recent publication, Elmessiri’s text has not yet received attention from Western scholars. The proposed presentation will address this gap by providing a general analysis of Elmessiri’s views and examining their place in current debates over secularism. In terms of methodology, analysis will draw on relevant textual sources, particularly Elmessiri’s “Partial Secularism and Comprehensive Secularism” and the published interviews with Elmessiri that have been collected in the 2009 work “Secularism, Modernity, and Globalization” (Al-‘Almaniyya wa-l-Hadatha wa-l-‘Awlama). Sources also include books and newspaper articles authored by figures who reference Elmessiri’s ideas. The proposed presentation will give special attention to the following key issues: (1) How do Elmessiri’s views differ from those found in the large number of Islamist tracts on secularism published over the past three decades? (2) What does Elmessiri mean by distinguishing between “partial” and “comprehensive” secularisms? What are the broader implications of such a distinction for Islamist politics? (3) How have Elmessiri’s ideas informed debates over secularism in the aftermath of the Arab Spring? I will show how Elmessiri’s arguments stress the need to differentiate between secularism as a limited political arrangement versus secularism as an all-encompassing mode of daily social existence. Elmessiri encourages openness to the former while denouncing the latter, thereby creating a position with some appeal both for left-learning intellectuals as well as religious conservatives. By laying out Elmessiri’s ideas and examining their increasing influence, the proposed presentation will provide insight into the future development of Islamist thought in the face of secularist challenges.