Is Islam against the separation of church and state?

Answer 1

There are Western Muslim leaders like Hamza Yusuf who argue that Islam can accommodate church/state separation, but there is no Muslim leader from the Islamic World that I am aware of who makes a similar argument. Christianity, as a religion, is fundamentally different in this regard than Islam or Judaism. Since "Christ's Kingdom" is not of this Earth, there is a strong argument in Christianity (extending back to Augustine) that there is a Divine Kingdom, but it cannot be replicated or enforced by men. This leads the way for terrestrial governments that are not necessarily inspired by the Church. (You need the Enlightenment to get to complete separation of church and state, but the beginnings are there.) Additionally, Christianity has several Hellenic aspects in addition to its Hebraic aspects that make it more open to a material worldview to a greater degree than Islam or Judaism.

The reason that Israel is democratic has very little to do with religious Judaism. Israel was founded primarily by Atheist Jews or Secular Jews. Zionism is still significantly less important to Religious Jews than Secular Jews. Religious Jewish communities (both in Israel and in the Diaspora) tend to be quasi-theocratic in their own right. The thing is that since they only rule over neighborhoods, that they are seen to be less of an issue. However, in Israel, these neighborhoods are beginning to "enforce" male/female segregation and Jew/non-Jew segregation on public transportation that they use and this is causing problems for Israel as Secular State.

Mohammed, by contrast, was a theocrat. He actually ruled a small empire for a few years and was city administrator of Yethrib/Medina for ten years. The Qur'an, Hadith, and especially the Sirat an-Nabi promote his style of leadership and the implementation of Islamic Law as governmental law. The clear tradition that only Islamic Law was legitimate came during the Umayyad period. When the Umayyads were believed to be too impious, people turned to the Imams to enforce the religious law and allowed the Umayyads to only have control in political matters as long as local Islamic law was enforced by the Imams. While pure theocracy no longer existed, there was now a tradition of explicit church-state cooperation, which continued all the way through the Ottoman Empire. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan (or political power) was close to the Caliph (the chief religious authority) and the two administered the different aspects of the Empire together. Saudi Arabian government today continues this tradition with the King serving as political power and the Wahhabist leaders serving as the chief religious authorities. In other countries, religious and political authority are fused (such as in Iran) or religious authority has been forcibly kicked out (such as in Egypt). However, a secular Egyptian regime is not typically considered "in-line" with Islamic doctrine.

Answer 2

Although it is a Christian business that Muslims has nothing to do with, but Muslims feel that it was a logic conclusion to separate the church and the state because of the interference, without religious true bases, of the church in all the political affairs of the state including even the marriage of the rulers and because of running the daily lives of people to the own church people personal benefits.