"'Ulama' and Modernity: A Reappraisal"

Western discourse on the status of clergy and religious functionaries in the three monotheistic creeds reflects a clear divide between their position in the premodern period and in modern times. As the custodians of learning and molders of communal identity in the premodern period, they were viewed as central to the functioning of society. In modern times, by contrast, in the face of the abandonment of religious conventions and norms by both the individual and the state, they were perceived as relegated to the margins of society. Terms such as "Promethean passion" and "metaphysical revolt" were widely used in research literature to express the religious upheaval in which the Kingdom of God was replaced by the human kingdom. The groundwork for this upheaval was attributed to the "triple revolution" in Christian Europe between 1600 and 1800: enlightenment, industrialism, and nationalism. [1]

fn 1:  David Ohana, The Promethean Passion: The Intellectual Origins of the Twentieth Century from Rousseau to Foucault; Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, pp. 154-59. The term "metaphysical revolt" is attributed to Albert Camus, who in his essay "The Rebel" (L'Homme revolte, 1951) defied God's legitimacy because He condemned humankind to suffering and death. Camus, The Revel: An Essay of Man in Revolt, chapter 2.

--Meir Hatina, 'Ulama', Politics, and the Public Sphere: An Egyptian Perspective (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2010), p. 1.