One of the most common misconceptions is that the Khilafah State is a theocratic state where the mullah is considered the Shade of God on earth and the ruling of the mullahs is absolute. This is a very dangerous concept which the West propagated to the Muslims. During the Middle Ages, the Church ruled the West in an iron-fisted manner which resulted in stifling of progress and widespread oppression. After adopting Capitalism and formally detaching the authority of the Church from the political life under the banner of Secularism, the West experienced a revival in science, arts, and technology. This history which the West experienced caused the Western intellectuals and philosophers to believe that the mixture of religion and politics is what resulted in the backwardness, the oppression, and the miserable conditions that characterized the Middle Ages. Therefore, according to them, any society must adopt Secularism and marginalize the role of the Church to the individual sphere for progress to materialize.
In order to promote the idea of Secularism in the Muslim World, the West propagated the false notion that the formula of separating Church and State can and should be generalized to include separation of any belief in the Creator from the life affairs. In addition, the West portrayed the historical transition that they underwent from Christian rule to Secularism as a universal phenomenon that any society will ultimately undergo and not as something unique to Western historical experiences. The Muslims began to mistakenly believe that because Islam, like Christianity, is a religion, then ''Islamic rule'' would produce the same results as ''Christian rule.'' As a result, Muslims began to believe that the reason for their decline was the ruling of Islam, much like the ruling of Christianity was the cause of the decline in the West. Furthermore, Muslims began to think that the way to revive themselves was to duplicate what the West did, which is to adopt Secularism and to marginalize the scope of Islam to the realm of the individual.
Clarifying this misconception begins by realizing that Islam and Christianity are very different from one another. This distinction becomes very noticeable when one scrutinizes the history of the West and compares it with the history of the Muslim Ummah. While the West revived when abandoning Christianity, the Muslims actually declined when they abandoned Islam. In fact, the more strongly the Muslims adhered to Islam, the more powerful they were, and their strength and power waned when their adherence and understanding towards Islam was weakened. It was Islam that uplifted the Arabs from backward, nomadic tribes into the superpower of the known world within a generation. And while Europe and the West remained in a state of backwardness under the rule of the Church, the societies in the Muslim world attained their zenith of technological and scientific advancement under Islamic rule.
The question that comes is: What difference between Islam and Christianity or any other religion caused the success of one and not the other? One crucial difference was that Islam is not a religion that was built upon rituals. Rather, Islam was a comprehensive ideology that came as a solution for human problems. Because the Christian doctrine was tampered with, the new doctrine was unable to address the reality. As a result, the Church did not even refer to the Christian doctrine in governing the affairs of the society. Rather, it was the opinions of the priesthood and clergymen which ruled the society. In order to justify this stance, the Church concocted the notion that only certain people were qualified to understand the Christian doctrine and their opinions were considered the opinions of God. Hence, the concept of the ''clergy'' took root in the West, and any opinion that challenged the opinions of the clergy was fought under the pretence that such opinions went against the ''Will of God.''
However, in Islam, such a conflict never occurred because the Islamic doctrine is intellectually proven to be consistent with the reality. Furthermore, Islam mandates its adherents to submit to Islam and to make Islam as the reference for life. No human being, regardless of his level of knowledge, can claim to be the representative of God's Will or the spokesperson for Islam. Any opinion or rule issued by anyone could be referenced to the ideology of Islam. Thus, the Islamic State was never a theocratic state in which the ruler was considered God's Shade on earth. Rather, the Islamic State was an ideological state in which Islam ruled, and all the people - whether rulers, scholars, or people in general - submitted to the Islamic ideology as their reference and standard.
Furthermore, Islam was a comprehensive system that addressed the human beings in a practical and relevant way, and not in an abstract, religious way that was far removed from their problems and issues. From the onset of its revelation to the Prophet Muhammad (saaw), it was clear that Islam came to address the problems that human beings were facing in a relevant manner. While the verses that were revealed to Muhammad (saaw) in Mecca were general in their implications, the examples that were mentioned directly addressed the practices, customs, and way of thinking of the people of Arabia at the time. For example, the concept of polytheism was attacked in Islam; however, the specific example that was mentioned was the idol worship that existed in Arabia at the time. Therefore, when Islam was applied upon the people, the implementation of Islam addressed the problems of the people and provided a comprehensive solution. The Islamic State always assumed an active role in attempting to resolve the problems of society. And under the tutelage of the Islamic State, many scholars and intellectuals produced books of Islamic Fiqh (Law/jurisprudence), Usul-ul-Fiqh (Basis of jurisprudence), and other works which testify that the Islamic State encouraged a rich intellectual atmosphere.
On the other hand, the theocracies of Europe failed to address the problems and issues that the people faced. When confronted with issues such as the widespread poverty, disease, gross inequalities in wealth, and intellectual backwardness, the Church, rather than attempting to undertake any concrete measures to resolve them, justified their existence that such societal diseases and inequalities were either ''God's Will'' God's punishment upon the sinful human race.
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