Islam’s fusion of religion with state makes holy war inherently political

Evidence

It is by now a truism that in Islam there is no distinction between church and state. In Christendom the existence of two authorities goes back to the founder of Christianity, who enjoined his followers to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. There are two powers: God and Caesar. They may be associated, they may be separated; they may be in harmony, they may be in conflict; one or the other may dominate; one may interfere, the other may protest, as we have recently been reminded. But always there are two; God and Caesar, Church and state. In classical Islam, that is to say in pre- Westernized Islam, there is no such distinction. There were not two powers but one, and the question of separation did not therefore arise. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1474 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Islam is in principle, if not in practice, theocratic in another and deeper sense. Theocracy literally means the rule of God. And in this sense Islam has, in theory, always been a theocracy. In Rome, Caesar was God. In Christendom, God and Caesar coexist. In Islam, God is Caesar, in that he alone is the supreme head of state, the source of sovereignty and hence also of authority and of law. The state is God’s state, the law is God’s law. The army is God’s army—and of course the enemy is God’s enemy. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1483 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empire-building forced a de facto separation of religious and political power in Islam.; Politics fused with sacred religious claims follow distinctive conflict dynamics — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 66; Islam’s prophetic-sacred and political-legal dimensions split at Muhammad’s death (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Classical Islam recognized one religious-political power rather than a church-state division #corroborates (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1474
• Islamic political theory fuses God and Caesar into one sovereign #corroborates (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1483