"At root, the involvement with power is,

 in both the Islamic and the Marxist visions, the outcome of the conviction that human suffering, to the extent that it is not inevitable, remains essentially an exclusively political phenomenon. Islam, like Marxism, recognizes the possibility of a prosperous, and just social order here on earth. Christianity, to take another vision, sees - or rather should in principle see - the radical sinfulness of human nature as imposing an operative embargo on the possibility of social justice on this side of the grave. Man's fallen state entails a permanent social disability that no political order could remove. Christianity, like Buddhism, views much of human suffering as an apolitical feature of our plight, transcending as it does purely political resolution. Islam and Marxism, by contrast, are characterized by an integral concern with the conscientious use of power in the service of social change that, in turns, serves to eliminate avoidable varieties of our distress and misery.

 -The Final Imperative: An Islamic Theology of Liberation, pg. 97

[This is going to be the last quote from this book for now. Alhamdullilah I borrowed it from the NYU library yesterday and finished it today.]