|
S i d e b a r
In Islam, No Distinction between Church and State
|
This Rock
Volume 19, Number 4
 April 2008 
|
|
|
The notion of church and state as distinct institutions, each with its own laws, hierarchy, and jurisdiction, is characteristically Christian, with its origins in Scripture and history. It is alien to Islam . . . One consequence is that in Islam religion is not, as it is in Christendom, one sector or segment of life regulating some matters and excluding others; it is concerned with the whole life, not a limited but a total jurisdiction. In such a society, the very idea of separating church and state is meaningless, since there are no two entities to be separated. Church and state, religious and political authority, are one and the same. Different agencies, different individuals, may deal with the affairs of this world and those of the next, but in principle they derive their authority from the same source and administer the same law. In classical Arabic and in the other classical languages of Islam, there are no pairs of terms corresponding to "lay" and "ecclesiastical," "spiritual" and temporal," "secular" and "religious," because these pairs of words express a Christian dichotomy that has no equivalent in the world of Islam.
(Source: Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West, 135-136)
|
C A T H O L I C A N S W E R S :
[TOP]
