Religions and belief systems are still affecting the societies as an essential part of their cultures. Especially the Islam is blamed by western critics for lacking an enlightment and modernization – including the separation of religion and the state. In fact, in almost every Arab country the Islam has an import role – except Tunisia, a special case for the region. It’s not only a comparatively secular state, it is also the sole democracy.

The secular – laical orientation was seen as the main question during the constitutional process. Whilst the both sides polarized more and more, a solutions deemed to be almost impossible. This led to a total lockdown of the process. It was solved by a huge effort of the civil society and a Salomonian solution. The text of the constitution allows an interpretation of the role of Islam in the State. The array varies from a state religion to a laical state with only an identical role of Islam. Each interpretation would lead to another arrangement of power and state – religion relations. Therefore, the interpretation is highly disputed. So you find a conflict over the power of interpretation, a hermeneutical conflict,  in Tunisia with two camps fighting for the hegemony.

In addition to that, the Islam and Sharia are highly marked by a wide array of different interpretations. This is attended with a tolerance for ambiguity, for some scientist one of the most important aspects of Islam.

The main aim of this thesis is to identify the basic aspects of the different interpretations to define prototypical positions in this conflict. Hence, it could define, how Laicism and Islam could be combined. Alongside, the study examines how these interpretational conflicts arise and how they are structured. In the discourse many positions are linked necissarily to one camp. But in fact, if you check their social distribution you see, that this is not the case. Thus there is a hermeneutic power over the hermeneutical conflict.