Unlike other major religions, Islam did not emerge as a spiritual movement that later developed political influence. From its inception, it was both a theological and a political project. Muhammad was not merely a preacher or a mystic; he was a legislator, judge, general, and head of state. His religious message was inseparable from his political leadership.
When Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, the Hijra, marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar, he did not just seek refuge. He established a polity: the first Islamic state. In Medina, Muhammad drafted the so-called Constitution of Medina, uniting various tribes under his leadership and declaring himself both the prophet of God and the ruler of men. Religion and governance were fused in one person.
In Christian terms, this would be as if Jesus not only preached the Sermon on the Mount but also built a government, commanded armies, and legislated divine law. In Islam, this fusion is not incidental; it is foundational. Muhammad’s life is the supreme model (uswa hasana), his actions forming the binding precedent (sunnah) for all Muslims. Thus, Islam’s spiritual and political components are not parallel tracks, they are one and the same.
The Quran does not treat governance as a secular concern. Political authority is directly tied to divine revelation. Verses such as “Those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are disbelievers” (Quran 5:44) make the application of divine law, sharia, a core religious duty. To separate religion from governance would be an act of disbelief (kufr).
This idea is reinforced by Islamic jurisprudence, which developed after Muhammad’s death. The Islamic scholars elaborated on the concept that sovereignty belongs to God alone (hakimiyyat Allah). The role of human rulers, then, is merely to implement divine law, not to legislate independently. In the Islamic worldview, there is no such thing as a morally neutral state, only states that obey or defy divine command.
The result is a perpetual expectation that the political order must reflect Islamic revelation. Any government not founded on Islam is considered temporary, illegitimate, or corrupt, a sign that the Muslim community has strayed from its divine mandate.
Why Reformation is Theologically Impossible
Christianity could separate church and state precisely because Jesus made no claim to political authority. His kingdom, as he said, was “not of this world.” The New Testament contains no political program, no civil code, and no military strategy. When Constantine Christianized the Roman Empire, he did something alien to Christianity’s original ethos, a fusion that later reformers could undo.
Islam, however, began as both faith and polity. To separate mosque and state is not to reform Islam, it is to rewrite it. Since Muhammad’s prophetic authority included governance, war, and law, removing these elements would mean rejecting his prophetic model itself. Such rejection is not reform but apostasy.
Even so-called “reformist Muslims” who argue for a secularized Islam face this paradox: if they deny Muhammad’s political role as normative, they undermine the theological principle of his perfection. Yet if they affirm it, they affirm the very fusion that makes Islam a political project.
The engine of Islam’s political nature is sharia, the divine law encompassing every dimension of human life, from prayer to taxation, diet to warfare. Unlike the Christian distinction between Caesar and God, Islam recognizes no such dualism. The law of Allah is supreme over all human institutions.
Sharia derives not from reasoned deliberation or consensus but from revelation: the Quran and the Hadith. It governs not only personal morality but public order. It defines marriage, contracts, inheritance, warfare, and the treatment of non-Muslims. In Islam, there is no neutral or secular space; every action falls within the boundaries of what is commanded, permitted, or forbidden by divine authority.
After Muhammad’s death, the caliphate was established to preserve both his religious and political legacy. The first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali) were regarded as his rightful successors, leaders of both faith and state. The wars of apostasy (ridda wars) fought under Abu Bakr were against tribes who refused to pay taxes or recognize Medina’s political authority. Disobedience to the political center was treated as rebellion against God.
This conflation of religious and political loyalty became a permanent feature of Islam. The Muslim community (ummah) was not just a fellowship of faith but a political body. Membership implied allegiance to an Islamic state, and defection was both treason and heresy.
Western policymakers assume that by promoting education, democracy, and economic opportunity, Muslims will naturally privatize their faith. This assumption reflects a Western bias, the belief that religion is primarily a matter of personal conscience. In Islam, faith is not personal; it is communal and juridical. To be a Muslim is to belong to a body governed by divine law.
Attempts to promote a “moderate Islam” or “cultural Islam” have repeatedly failed because they rest on a false premise: that Islam can exist without its political core. The reality is that an apolitical Islam is not Islam. It would require a theological revolution, not merely a political reform, and every such attempt has been met with accusations of heresy or apostasy.
The Modern Dilemma
Modern Muslims who seek to reform Islam face a cruel dilemma: they must either reinterpret or reject key elements of the faith. To secularize Islam, they must deny the political dimension of the Quran, the authority of sharia, and the prophetic example of Muhammad, all central pillars of Islam. But to preserve Islam is to preserve the political imperative.
This is why reformers such as Mahmoud Muhammad Taha in Sudan or Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd in Egypt were executed or exiled. They attempted to spiritualize Islam by downplaying its legal and political components, and the orthodox establishment responded by declaring them apostates.
Islamic theology centers around submission, not just spiritual submission to God, but societal submission to His law. The very word Islam means “submission.” In the Quran, faith is expressed through compliance: “It is not for a believing man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, to have any choice in their affair” (Q 33:36).
In this worldview, freedom of conscience is not a virtue; obedience is. Political independence from divine law is rebellion. The West’s separation of religion and state is thus not seen as progress but as moral decay, a revolt against God.
This is why, even among Muslims living in Western democracies, there is a deep ambivalence toward secular governance. Many enjoy the freedoms of liberal society but view those freedoms as instruments of corruption. They may vote, pay taxes, and integrate economically, yet they retain the conviction that Islam must ultimately prevail.
Every major attempt to reform Islam has failed because reform requires breaking the link between faith and power, a link sanctified by scripture and history. The modernist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, from Egypt’s Muhammad Abduh to Turkey’s Ataturk, sought to confine Islam to the private sphere. Yet, even Ataturk’s secularism depended on authoritarianism; he replaced the rule of clerics with the rule of the state.
In Muslim-majority societies, democracy itself tends to empower Islamic movements because political participation becomes a means to achieve theological ends. As the saying goes: “Democracy is like a train, you ride it until you reach your station, then you get off.” Muslims embrace democracy only until they can replace it with divine law.
For Western societies grappling with the rise of Islam within their borders, the first step is intellectual honesty. Islam is not merely a religion but a comprehensive system, a civilization with its own legal, political, and moral order. Treating it as a private faith like Christianity is a category error.
This doesn’t mean that every Muslim seeks to impose sharia. But it does mean that the theological foundation for such ambitions is authentic and enduring. Ignoring that fact for the sake of tolerance is suicide.
Western policymakers and intellectuals must confront the uncomfortable truth: Islam cannot be secularized without ceasing to be Islam. The path forward lies not in pretending that the religion can be reformed into something it is not, but in defending the moral and institutional boundaries that make the West free.
Danny Burmawi is the chief executive of the Ideological Defense Institute
The term “reformation” comes from the Latin reformare, meaning “to reform” or “to return to the original form.”
Islam is a political movement with a religion.