Dispersed religious authority in Islam prevented church-state clashes

Evidence

The religious class [in Islam] did not pose the sort of challenge to temporal authority that the religious hierarchy presided over by the pope did to emperors and kings in medieval and early modern Europe. The dispersal of religious authority in Islam therefore normally prevented a direct clash between temporal and religious power, as happened in medieval Christendom… . It also helped preclude the establishment of a single orthodoxy that, in alliance with the state, could suppress all dissenting tendencies and oppress their followers, as happened in Christian Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. Wars of religion and persecution of “heretical” sects were therefore infrequent in Islamdom in contrast to Christendom. At the same time, it promoted the creation of distinct religious and political spheres that by and large respected each other’s autonomy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 296

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses Lewis’s indivisibility claim and parallels the Ayoob material Kumar cites; relevant to the reader’s comparison with Christian-state dynamics studied elsewhere. — connects to: Islam has practiced de facto separation of religion and politics since the eighth century — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 284; Sharia was codified by the ulama as imperial administrative law — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 291; Religious claims overstated the unity of religion and politics in Islam — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 294 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Religious claims overstated the unity of religion and politics in Islam #qualifies (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 294