Is There a Modern Understanding of the Secular?

I don't think that Islamic civilization really sustained an idea of there being a neutral space within the caliphate. So my contention is that you can find evidence and thought and principles in early Islam to support a development of a fully modernized secular state today without compromising the individual's piety. Now, you're right that that doesn't give us French laicity, but what it does give us is principles and ideas with which we can work.