by Mohammed Bamyeh, The Immanent Flame, SSRC Blogs, June 20, 2008

It is hard to disagree with the main arguments of Abdullahi an-Na’im’s impeccable book: a healthy religious life requires a secular state, even as political life may remain infused with the religious values of the population. And the historical examples provide added credence to the point. An Islamic state as such never existed historically, even though pre-modern states cannot be regarded as secular in the contemporary sense of the word. But there has never been a state in Islamic history that fused entirely religious and political authority after Muhammad, and it is far from obvious that Muhammad’s own Medina community constituted a state or was meant as a model for any state. All states in Islamic history had a more clearly defined political than religious character, even as they used religion for their purposes or were expected to fulfill some religious roles. In effect, they were political entities that survived to the extent that they accommodated themselves to the diversity (including legal diversity) of Islam and other local traditions. Colonial rule is to blame for rigidifying the sense of what Islam meant, namely by codifying diverse, flexible religious traditions into standard legal formats and ignoring the fluidity of communal boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims. However, this rigid colonial perspective on the meaning of religiosity and identity was inherited by contemporary Islamic political movements and states claiming to be Islamic. Continue reading A Secular State Must Deliver →