This assessment is true as it takes power realities as the primary analysis, while ignoring anachronistic ideological reading back into history. Owing to the *lack of a system*, there was great intra-Muslim violence among the Sahaba. https://twitter.com/AkyolinEnglish/status/1258857835347271681

It would also be accurate to call the Ummayad empire not a caliphate but a tribal federation as its power base was just a form of neo-Makkan tribal politics - various Arab tribes squaring off against each other for power and imperial patronage.

However, there's a wide berth between the total vilification of the early founders of Islam and sacralising them. We don't sacralise them, but we sure as hell do respect them.

Shi'i denigration of the founders goes beyond mere interpretations of history:

as far as we are concerned, it's an attempt to rewrite tawhid out of history and replace it with a syncretist style of Islam that is far more malleable to other theological systems, ie Christianity.

As for the secular state, I've written a bit here on why I feel the term secular is useless: a secular-religious dichotomy has never really existed. There has always been space for what is "secular" and what is religious. https://islamofuturist.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/the-islamic-state-is-an-anachronism/

I don't feel like imitating liberalism is the best course of action when its currently sinking the boat in the western hemisphere, while the illiberal democratic east Asian states lead the way in 21st governance. Singapore doesn't need liberalism for coexistence.

Post-liberalism would be a better project to pursue, one that takes the best elements of liberalism while weeding out its most pernicious beliefs (eg individualism), and acknowledging that illiberal states now lead the way in good governance.

To add, we may finally come to realise that the secular state is *meta* in the post-industrial world. Ie all forms of political process must come to be defined by it. This is because the power of the state is far too great.

Any one group capturing the state more or less guarantees the eventual extinction of all other groups. This is the reason for recurrent violence in places like the Balkans and Middle East.

This is unlike premodern imperial governance where the empire sought to mediate among all groups in the empire. The modern state is so powerful that this can be dispensed with if the group that rules it so desires.

It is also important as a meta check on religious people guiding the ship of state, because it is the prevention if idolatry caused by the sheer pwoer of the state. Iran is an example of how religion becomes oppressive when expressed through the power of the state.

Our understanding of the secular is largely coloured by French secularism, which is militantly anti-religion and actively promotes a secular religion.

Anglo secularism is far less pernicious and erosive when it comes to religion. It doesn't establish a public religion of secularism per se, but enables govt to be small enough to not necessitate that, and trusts its people to manage religion by themselves.

This also prevents using power to oppress other religious groups. America is a decent example of this in the modern period. Religious groups fled to America and proliferated across America due to its design, fleeing the intense religious wars of Europe as the state rose.