Islam’s moral law was beyond any single agency’s or branch’s control

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Premodern Islamic governance could not suspend its law under any exception; Divine-command ethics did not entail theistic tyranny in Islam — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 515; Divine-command ethics in mainstream Islam presupposes rather than suppresses individual moral autonomy. (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Classical Islam recognized one religious-political power rather than a church-state division #complicates (0.78) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1474