Abstract
Can religion and state be separated from each other in an Islamic context? This chapter takes both historical and theoretical approaches to this question, beginning with an overview of the origins of Islam as a religious and political community in seventh-century Arabia and moving through its centuries of territorial expansion and medieval educational developments. This leads to theoretical questions concerning the primacy of sharı̄ʿa within Islam and how the latter affects the possibility of a separation of mosque and state. After addressing contemporary views on both sides of the debate, I argue that how one answers this question revolves in great part around one’s embrace of or skepticism toward modernity. The chapter closes with a brief case study from Morocco’s unique imam-training institute, providing a window into that country’s particular admixture of religion and state and its implications for Muslim societies in the modern world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
That the year 622 AD is the same as Year 1 in the Islamic (Hijri) calendar should not lead the reader to conclude that the two calendars are simply 621 years apart, as the Hijri calendar is lunar. As I write this note in May 2020, for instance, the Hijri date is 9 Ramadan 1441.
- 2.
وَلَا يَقْتُلُ مُؤْمِنٌ مُؤْمِنًا فِي كَافِرٍ in my translation; see https://site.eastlaws.com/Dostor/DostorElmadina/Dostor_Elmadian_Show for Arabic text of Constitution of Medina.
- 3.
The minority Shiʿī Muslims, who broke away from the sect that would come to be called Sunni Islam not long after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, differed from the latter on the question of who rightly succeeded the Prophet as imam, or leader of the Islamic community. Due to the fact that the vast majority (around 80%) of global Muslims are Sunnī, and because the treatment of ‘mosque and state’ in a Shiʿī context would require a separate treatment, this chapter does not, regrettably, address the Shiʿī case. It is worth pointing out, however, that the Shiʿa practice their faith with a more centralized religious authority; what this portends for the possibility of the separation of mosque and state is a fascinating question that must be set aside for a later inquiry.
- 4.
The four legal schools did eventually sort themselves geographically; what is now Saudi Arabia, for instance, was historically a Ḥanbalī region, though in more recent centuries it has adopted the jurisprudence of Ibn Wahhab, whereas North African (not counting Egyptian), West African, and some Sub-Saharan African countries use Malikī legal theory. Turkey, the Levant, most of Egypt and central Asian countries are Ḥanafī, and northeast African and southeast Asian countries are among the predominantly Shafiʿī countries.
- 5.
For the Arabic grammarian, it is worth noting that tawḥīd is a 2nd wazan verbal noun (maṣdar).
- 6.
Whether the Ottoman Empire constituted a true caliphate is in dispute but is not terribly important here; the essential point is that its breakup did not lead naturally into a Westphalian nation-state system.
- 7.
While they are not included in my account, it is important to note that one strain of responses has been marked by a radical rejection of the Western version of modernity altogether. Early twentieth-century Islamists, including Sayed Qutb (1906–1966), Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), and Abul Ala Maududi (1903–1979), responding to a combination of imperialism, Western influence on society and government, and the concomitant secularism, advocated a radical rejection of the separation of mosque and state and sought a return to premodern Islam, sometimes, as in the case of Qutb, advocating violence in order to do so. See, for example, Butterworth 1992.
- 8.
This is my translation of the Arabic constitution’s provision, which suggests the broadest protection. The French version guarantees ‘le libre exercise du culte,’ the free exercise of worship. These two should be taken as authoritative over English translations, as the Moroccan Constitutional Court’s website (https://www.cour-constitutionnelle.ma/ar/دستور-المملكة-المغربية).
offers only the Arabic version, while the Moroccan government’s website (http://www.maroc.ma/en/system/files/documents_page/bo_5964bis_fr_3.pdf) offers the French. None offer an authorized English translation.
References
Abduh, M. 1980. The Theology of Unity. Trans. Isḥaq Musaʿad and Kenneth Cragg. New York: Arno Press.
Abbasi, R. 2020a. Did Premodern Muslims Distinguish the Religious and Secular? The Dīn–Dunyā Binary in Medieval Islamic Thought. Journal of Islamic Studies 31 (2): 185–225.
Abu Zayd, N.H. 2007. Naqd al-Khiṭāb al-Dīnī (Critique of Religious Discourse). Casablanca, Morocco: al-Markaz al-Thaqāfī al-ʿarabī.
An-Naim, A. 2010. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Arjomand, S.A. 2009. The Constitution of Medina: A Sociological Interpretation of Muhammad’s Acts of Foundation of the Umma. International Journal of Middle East Studies 41: 555–575.
Butterworth, C. 1992. Political Islam: The Origins. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 524: 26–37.
Guillaume, A. 1955. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥaq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Excerpted at https://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm. Accessed 15 May 2020.
Hallaq, W.B. 2012a. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press. Kindle edition.
Hmimnat, S. 2019. Training Malian Imams in Morocco: Challenges and Prospects. Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis. https://mipa.institute/6639.
Hourani, A. 1983. Arab Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939, 1983. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kerry, J. 2014. Remarks at Opening Plenary of the U.S.-Morocco Strategic Dialogue. April 14, 2014. https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/04/224411.htm
Le Matin. 2019. La Fondation Mohammed VI des oulémas africains lance son site web et le projet de magazine des oulémas africains. https://lematin.ma/journal/2019/fondation-mohammed-vi-oulemas-africains-lance-site-web-projet-magazine-oulemas-africains/316272.html. Accessed 24/07/2019
Lapidus, I. 2014a. A History of Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lecker, M. 2012. Constitution of Medina. In The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schacht, J. 1964. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Shahrour, M. 2018. Islam and Humanity: Consequences of a Contemporary Reading. Trans. George Stergios. Berlin, Germany: Gerlach Press.
Wainscott, A.M. 2018. Religious Regulation as Foreign Policy: Morocco’s Islamic Diplomacy in West Africa. Politics and Religion 11: 1–26.
Further Reading
Abbasi, Rushain. 2020b. Did Premodern Muslims Distinguish the Religious and the Secular? The Dīn-Dunyā Binary in Medieval Islamic Thought. Journal of Islamic Studies 31 (2): 185–220.
Review and critique of literature purporting to show a collapse of the distinction between religious and worldly categories in early Islam. At once defends the notion of a lack of separation between religion and state while showing that early Muslims did distinguish between what was strictly religious and what was not. Good for understanding Islamic thought on its own terms rather than either through or opposed to Western categories of religious and secular.
Averroes. 2008. Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory. Translated, with introduction and notes, by Charles E. Butterworth. Provo, UT: Brigham University Press.
A careful translation, with parallel Arabic, of one of the most important medieval texts on the harmony of religious law and philosophy.
Hallaq, Wael B. 2012b. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament, 2012. New York: Columbia University Press.
A leading scholar of Islamic law takes a critical view of the modern state and concludes that it is fundamentally incompatible with sharīʿa.
Lapidus, Ira. 2014b. A History of Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
A comprehensive history of Islam as both a religion and polity from its inception till contemporary times. Widely considered a classic, Lapidus’ history is an excellent reference for students and scholars alike.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Taliaferro, K. (2023). Can Mosque and State Be Separated? Should They? The ‘Divine Pattern,’ Freedom, and Modernity. In: Holzer, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Volume II. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35609-4_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35609-4_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35608-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35609-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)