The Relationship between Religion and Politics in Islam

One of the important issues in the field of social and political thought is the relationship between 'religion' and 'politics'. In Islamic world and among Muslim intellectuals there is a serious debate and controversy on the nature and extend of the relationship between religion and politics. This paper aims to study the relationship between religion and politics by an assessment of views of different Muslim scholars from both spectrums. Some scholars deny any kind of connection between religion and politics and assume the interference of one in the territory of other as problematic and advice the complete separation of these two domains. Other intellectuals give certain reasoning and justifications in support of a deep connection between religion and politics. This paper evaluates and compares the reasons and rationales which these two groups of scholars cherish to defend their assumption of relationship between religion and politics. The authors conclude that, despite the methodical controversy, in the Islamic School of thought and in a factual and historical context, there are irrefutable conceptual and theoretical as well as institutional and structural relationship between religion and politics.