The formation of states and political legitimacy has most of the time been intertwined with the religious authority residing in the state. In Christian Europe, the church was the initial source of legitimacy post-Roman Empire. The rise and fall (and rebirth) of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation help shape state structures and, ultimately, the rise of the secular state. In contrast, in Dar-al-Islam, there was a unique and changing relationship between the state and the ulema because politics and religion fell more or less in the same realm. In some cases, the state and the ulema remained relatively separate, but in other cases the ulema became the