If Islam does not differentiate between church and state, why should I?

Submitted by Prashant, Dec 16, 2017 at 12:05

Dear Dr Pipes,

I come back to this argument over and over again and write about it in my comments on your blog. I think separation of Church and State is not only good for the state but it is good for the church also. When a religion does not meddle into the affairs of a state too much and distinguishes itself from the affairs of political entities, it also keeps itself isolated from the criticism that political entities often get and deserve.

Islam, on the other hand, embraces the amalgamation of church and state. One cannot read ten pages of the Quran without noticing that in the Quran believers are also represented as a world wide political entity in which the Allah-ordained responsibility of the members and leaders is to propagate and defend the ideology.

This begs the question that if Islam does not separate religion from politics why should we do this favor to Islam.

Pick the name of your favorite Islamic tyrant. It can be bin-laden or Idi Amin form the modern era or Mehmet II or Timur of the past centuries. Will it be fair to say that these marauders of the past centuries were not bad by themselves but the entire ideology that they were following was bad because they were following the advice incorporated in that ideology? For a religion to be considered good, its followers need to behave well and not too many of them should act too badly (specially when there is no distinction between the religion and the political ideology).

I personally think that Islam should adopt a philosophy of humanitarian democracy that include separation of church and estate as soon as possible. And until there is a very strong and perceptible movement within Islam to do so, the modern world should not distinguish between Islam the religion and Islam the political ideology. Until it is done, I have no obligation to call Islamic states rogue and Islam the religion good. So, dear Islamic mullahs around the world, wake up soon and issues fatwas proclaiming the independence of state from church and vice versa without further delay. No fatwa will go to waste.

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