Islam and the Problems of Society: Economics over Politics
[I]t is a uniquely modern belief that politics will totally change our lives and redeem us, or that the existence of the correct political structure can cure ‘the problems of society’. This belief in the salvational quality of politics, as has been noted by John Gray, is dying or already dead in liberal societies (to be replaced by the ‘cult of science and technology’ according to Gray). One can’t help but agree with Dr. Yahya Michot, when he said … that too many Muslims, having concentrated on politics to the exclusion of almost everything else, ended up “backing the wrong horse” in the 20th-century (especially if one considers that, according to Michot, economics has trumped politics). It is the modern idea of fascism that says the state must control and define all activities of its citizens: the economic, the political, the social, the legal, the cultural and even the metaphysical. It is people who reduce Islam to nothing more than a bid for power, a method and an end of governance, that will actually end up secularising Islam.
From Thabet. I hope I can elaborate more on this, for now this will serve as a place holder.