Traditionally both religion and politics have had one common goal: to acquire power and use it to fulfil their aims. However, when it comes to achieving this objective, their methods differ.

Religion mobilises the religious sensibilities of a people to get their support to capture power; while politics uses intrigue, diplomacy and attempts to win public opinion either democratically, if the system allows, or usurps power with the help of the army, if society is under-developed and backward. Therefore, in a power struggle, both politics and religion attempt to undermine each other.

If religion holds political authority, it seeks to exploit it to fulfil a divine mission. It claims that it derives authority from divinity and therefore its mission is motivated by an aim to reform society under spiritual guidance. Cut-throat politics, on the contrary, bereft of any moral value, directs its policy towards the needs and requirements of society whereupon it changes laws and systems of governance accordingly.

This is the basic difference between the approach of religion and politics: religion bases its authority on divine laws which cannot be changed by human intervention, while in a pragmatic political approach society should move ahead, change and adjust itself according to the rising challenges of time. In the secular approach, man is responsible for determining his destiny; he is supposed to initiate and plan to build a society according to his own vision.

There are three models in history related to religion and politics. In one, religion and politics both unite in an attempt to monopolise political power. We call it the integration and sharing model. In the second model, politics, after subduing and overpowering religion, uses it for its interests. In this model religion plays a subservient role to politics. In the third model both come into conflict with each other that subsequently leads to their separation. In this model they appear as rivals and continue to struggle for domination.

The study of the beginning and spread of religion shows that every religion started in a particular space and time; therefore, the main focus of its teachings has been the solution of existing problems. However, with the change of time there are new challenges and religion has to respond to them for its survival. In this process, it has to adjust its teachings according to the changes.

With the passage of time, a stage comes when a religion fails to respond to the challenges of its time and finds hardly any space to adjust to a new environment. For example, in the case of Islam, it took nearly two and a half centuries to complete its orthodoxy. Once the process was complete, it became impossible for orthodoxy to give place to new ideas and new thinking. It was believed that any change in the structure would weaken its base. On this plea it persists in retaining its old structure without any addition.

At this stage there remain three options for any religion. One, avoid and disapprove any change in its structure. If any attempt is made to reinterpret teachings, they should either be crushed politically or with help of religious injunctions (fatwa in the case of Islam). Those who claim to reconstruct religious thoughts should be condemned as enemies of religion and believers should be warned to boycott them and not listen to their views.

In the second option, religion has a choice to adapt itself according to the needs of time; to accept new interpretation relating to its teachings and accommodate modernity. The third option applies when those standing up for religion fail to respond to the challenges and feel insecure. They, and consequently religion, withdraw from active life and decide not to get entangled in worldly affairs. Religion then confines its activities to spirituality. The characteristic of these three reactions may be defined as aggressive, compromising and separatist, respectively.

The helplessness of religion is obvious in much of the modern world today, in which scientific and technological inventions are rapidly changing society and its character and making it more complex and mechanical. Science, technology and other branches of knowledge assume a separate entity that could be specialised and handled by professionals.

Ulema or religious scholars in most cases are not in a position to understand the intricacies of these new professions or able to adjust them with their religious teachings. This is the reason why, in some societies, religion is separated from politics and economics, and it no longer enjoys domination over society which it did in medieval times.

There are groups of people in every society who want change in their practical life but at the same time they do not desire to abandon religion. These people become supporters of new interpretations of religion that suit their way of life and this causes the emergence of new sects. Therefore, we find that in every religion there are new sects which fulfil the demands of a group of people for a span of time, and then these may disappear into the oblivion of history. Some sects do persist and survive.

For example, in Christianity, when the bourgeoisie wanted religious sanction in the matter of charging interest, Calvin (d.1594), a religious reformer, allowed it on the basis of religion. This removed business hurdles and the merchant and industrial classes flourished. R.H. Tawney, in his classic book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism rightly says, ‘Calvin did for the bourgeoisie of the 16th century what Marx did for the proletariat of the 19th.’