The Crusades

[nicky g]

"Maybe there is a great deal of debate about those things amongst ignorant Westerners, but not amongst imams and mullahs."

Who exactly you mean by "imams and mullahs" I'm not quite sure (Imams in Sunni Islam are simply prayer leaders), but I can categorically assure you that there is an enormous amount of debate on these topics amongst contemporary Muslim scholars.

"In Islamic ideology there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. Hence there is no distinction between secular government and religious rule--it is all the same, and it is all to follow the will of God. Therefore government under Islam has an absolute or totalitarian aspect that cannot ever be truly shaken loose."

This is completely wrong. There are Muslims who advocate this kind of vision but to say that it is an uncontested integral aspect of Islam is incorrect. THere is no advice in the Quran on forms of government, religious or otherwise, and the "Islam as state and religion"/din wa dawla formulation is a modern one. The early caliphs' religious roles were unclear, and very quickly the caliphs ceased to have any real political power, so it is clear that this was also not true of most of Islamic history.