This article is focused on the interplay of natural faith (al-īmān), formal or artificial religion (al-dīn), and the art of politics (fannu-l-siyāsah) in Islam. Trust in God is primordial faith (al-īmān), which is shared by all human beings in the conception of their creation by God who breathes His soul (al-rūḥ) into each and every human being as a potential trust in Him. Thus, trust in God is the matter (hyle) of faith. The faith is not yet the form (al-ṣūrah or al-shakl). The form of the matter of faith becomes religion (al-dīn), after it has been shaped by the art of theologians as an artificial theology, which is not necessarily wholly compatible with the primordial matter (hyle) of faith, but it cannot be said that the form (al-ṣūrah or al-shakl) of religion (al-dīn), as an formal or artificial theology, is totally void of the matter or substance of the natural faith (al-īmān). The art of politics (fannu-l-siyāsah) is an interplay between the natural faith (al-īmān) as a trust in God and the religion (al-dīn) as an formal or instructive theology, which is, on the other hand, the play of continuity and change in history. In this process of continuity and change many forces in Islamic history have been at play and many crises have arisen. This article will try to identify these forces with a focus on the phenomenon of historical and contemporary deviational “extremism” in the world of Islam.