CHALLENGES OF METAMORPHOSIS IN THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST: RELIGION-POLITICS RELATIONS UNDER CONSTRUCTION MARKOS TROULIS In the Western world, modernism has been identified with the decline of religiosity and the separation of religion from the political spectrum. This is not clear in the case of Islam and the relative sociopolitical tradition in the Greater Middle East; in contrast to modernist traditions, structural modernisation, economic development and democratisation have been linked to the dynamic role of religion and as a consequence, the rise of political Islam. This means that religion is not just subsumed in polity, but also represents a specific political ideology (Gülalp, 2002, p.21). This does not suggest that leadership is conducted through the ‘ulama and other religious clergy. On the contrary, according to Islamic tradition, governance is wielded in the light of God’s will and legitimisation (Lewis, 1988, pp.26-27). In classical Islam, modernism-like separations between religion and state would have been unthinkable. According to the Islamic conceptualisation of polity, religion and state represent absolutely identical notions, since politics cannot be perceived separately from the ummah (Muslim society); as Niyazi Berkes stresses, there is a direct connection between state and religion, the so-called ‘din-ü-devlet’ (Yavuz, 2009, p.18). Islam lays the foundations as a linchpin between metaphysics and governance; in this way, Islam is not isolated in transcendent issues, but enters polity, a procedure representing a normal extension of its role (Sarris, 1990, pp.35-36). Under this scope the Qur’an becomes the most significant source of political legitimisation. For this reason, Islam has always affected sociopolitical relations whenever allowed to do so. As Bernard Lewis (1988) stresses, ‘the political relevance of Islam is internal as well as external. In all but one of the sovereign states with a clear Muslim majority, Islam is the state religion; many of them have clauses in