The Islamic Way Of Thinking by Hasan Abdullah

The manner in which the West addressed this issue perhaps inflicted the greatest damage upon the Muslim Ummah because it struck at the very mechanism which implements the Islamic system.

During the Middle Ages, the Western nations suffered tremendously as a result of the theocratic systems imposed upon them. A severe backlash erupted as a result of the oppression that the West experienced, which caused some groups to deny religion altogether. In order to resolve this confrontation, the West formulated a compromise solution which separated the Deen from the life affairs, and this solution became the Secular basis of Western Capitalist societies. With the separation of Church and State and the subsequent adoption of Capitalism, Europe entered a phase of rapid progress. Thus, the notion that religion and politics cannot coexist and that mixing the two is synonymous with backwardness and decline became a cornerstone in Western political thought.

The West exported this notion to the Muslims and brilliantly deceived the Muslims into thinking that the historical experiences which the West encountered was a universal one which applied to every religion or Deen, including Islam. As a result, the Muslims began to view Islamic politics in the same light as the West viewed politics mixed with the Deen as a lethal cocktail. And just as the West perceived their decline as the result of mixing religion with politics, the Muslims began to perceive their own decline as the direct result of implementing Islam in the life affairs.

Such a problem could have been easily alleviated if the Muslims realized that the experiences of the West were specific to the West and stemmed from certain factors, such as: The inability of the Christian doctrine to address the life affairs because of the original doctrine being mixed with manmade ideas and innovations; the fact that the whims and opinions of the clergy, and not even the Christian doctrine itself, was used as a basis for rule; and the incorrectness of the manner in which the Europeans attempted to resolve their intellectual dilemma, which produced an incorrect solution that inherently contradicted itself. None of these factors could be generalized to the Muslim World because the Islamic text is proven correct and was never polluted, which made Islam capable of addressing the life affairs at any time or place. And Islam, unlike the existing Christian doctrine in Europe at the time, is intellectually conclusive and directs the human being to build his Aqeedah based on the intellectual method. Furthermore, the Islamic Aqeedah is comprehensive in its nature, and from it emanates a comprehensive system of life. Therefore, there was never a conflict between the reality deduced from the intellect and the Islamic Aqeedah. And the Islamic System addresses all aspects of life, leaving no aspect of the life affairs unanswered. Because of these attributes that were unique to the Islamic Aqeedah, the Muslims never had a "Dark Ages" which the West experienced. The decline which the Muslims were undergoing was a result of misunderstanding Islam, which resulted from the accumulation of several factors, none of which had any relation to the factors contributing to the European Dark Ages. However, the West capitalized upon the decline of the Muslims and their intellectual confusion by misleading them to believe that the presence of Islam in the political arena was the central cause of their decline. As a result, the Muslims were diverted into perceiving their decline as well as the issue of revival using the West as a model, which caused them to call for the separation of Islam from the life affairs and abandoning the Islamic political system as necessary to revive the Muslims.

Today, the separation of Islam and politics has become deeply rooted among the Muslims in general and among Muslim politicians and intellectuals in particular. In addition, two recent factors compound the problem. First, the educational curricula laid down by the Western Colonialists which the Muslims were exposed to depicted the Islamic history under the Khilafah as a ruthless and barbaric era in which the Muslim world was engulfed in conflicts, instability, and endless killings immediately following the Era of the Sahabah. The Khulafaa were presented for the most part as bloodthirsty dictators preoccupied with lavishness and women. Such images were so successfully implanted in the minds of the Muslims that they began to view their history with shame, thinking that the Khilafah was something that spoiled the image of Islam. Added to the history books are the existence of some regimes in the Muslim world which claim themselves as Islamic, as well as the behavior of Muslim political parties and individuals who play the same dirty politics characteristic of Western politics. Such regimes, although they are nothing more than Secular regimes which apply fragments of Islam, nevertheless present a very negative portrayal of Islam. Because of the inability of most Muslims to distinguish between what constitutes an Islamic state and the existing states which claim themselves as Islamic, and their inability to differentiate between politics practiced based on Islam and "Politics in the name of Islam," such regimes and individuals further shatter the confidence of Muslims in Islam's ability to address the life's affairs.

As a result, many Muslims, out of despair and frustration, take the easy path and separate Islam from politics altogether.