 Islam, Catholicism, and Religion-State Separation: An Essential or Historical Difference?Ahmet T. Kuru
International Journal of Religion, 2020, vol. 1, issue 1, 91-104 Abstract: There exist severe restrictions over religious dissent in most Muslim-majority countries. This problem is associated with the alliance between religious and political authorities in these cases. I argue that the alliance between Islamic scholars (the ulema) and the state authorities was historically constructed, instead of being a characteristic of Islam. Hence, the essentialist idea that Islaminherently rejects religion-state separation, whereas Christianity endorses it, is misleading. Instead, this article shows that the ulema-state alliance in the Muslim world was constructed after the mid-eleventh century, as well as revealing that the church-state separation in Western Europe was also historically institutionalized during that period. Using comparative-historical methods, the article explains the political and socioeconomic backgrounds of these epochal transformations. It particularly focuses on the relations between religious, political, intellectual, and economic classes. Keywords: Islam; Catholicism; separation; ulema; state (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mig:ijornl:v:1:y:2020:i:1:p:91-104 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article International Journal of Religion is currently edited by Ijor Editor More articles in International Journal of Religion from Wise Press, UK |
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