Islam Is Religion and State?

Abstract

The Muslim world is currently undergoing a political, social and economic crisis. This is a truism which is acknowledged by Muslim scholars and policy-makers. Islamists, those seeking to capture political power to legislate the perfect Muslim, believe that this Muslim decline can only be reversed by creating a polity which resembles that of the first Islamic state—that of seventh-century Medina during the rule of the Prophet Muhammad. Despite sharing this common goal, Islamists are divided into three groups on the basis of which tactics to employ to achieve their common objective. Purists focus on non-violent methods of propagation and education, whilst politicos enter the political space in an effort to legislate “good” behaviour and sanction “bad” behaviour. Jihadists constitute the final grouping, and they seek to topple the existing order through revolutionary violence. The Islamist rejection of democracy, their intolerance and rejection of the proverbial other, however, hardly suggests that the Islamist path would lead the Muslim world out of the current morass they find themselves in.