Islam and democracy

There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors.

In 2021, a number of Muslim majority countries are Islamic and secular democracies.

Many Muslim scholars have argued that traditional Islamic notions such as ''shura'' (consultation), ''maslaha'' (public interest), and '' ʿadl'' (justice) justify representative government institutions which are similar to Western democracy, but reflect Islamic rather than Western liberal values. Still others have advanced liberal democratic models of Islamic politics based on pluralism and freedom of thought. Some Muslim thinkers have advocated secularist views of Islam.

A number of different attitudes regarding democracy are also represented among the general Muslim public, with polls indicating that majorities in the Muslim world desire a political model where democratic institutions and values can coexist with the values and principles of Islam, seeing no contradiction between the two.

Traditional political concepts

Quran

Muslim democrats, including Ahmad Moussalli (professor of political science at the American University of Beirut), argue that concepts in the Quran point towards some form of democracy, or at least away from despotism. These concepts include ''shura'' (consultation), ''ijma'' (consensus), ''al-hurriyya'' (freedom), ''al-huqquq al-shar'iyya'' (legitimate rights). For example, ''shura'' ( Al Imran – Quran 3:159, Ash-Shura – Quran 42:38) may include electing leaders to represent and govern on the community's behalf. Government by the people is not therefore necessarily incompatible with the rule of Islam, whilst it has also been argued that rule by a religious authority is not the same as rule by a representative of God. This viewpoint, however, is disputed by more traditional Muslims. Moussalli argues that despotic Islamic governments have abused the Quranic concepts for their own ends: "For instance, shura, a doctrine that demands the participation of society in running the affairs of its government, became in reality a doctrine that was manipulated by political and religious elites to secure their economic, social and political interests at the expense of other segments of society," (In ''Progressive Muslims'' 2003).

Sunni Islam

Deliberations of the Caliphates, most notably the Rashidun Caliphate, were not democratic in the modern sense rather, decision-making power lay with a council of notable and trusted companions of Muhammad and representatives of different tribes (most of them selected or elected within their tribes).

In the early Islamic Caliphate, the head of state, the Caliph, had a position based on the notion of a successor to Muhammad's political authority, who, according to Sunnis, was ideally elected by the people or their representatives, as was the case for the election of Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Al Khattab, Uthman, and Ali as Caliph. After the Rashidun Caliphs, later Caliphates during the Islamic Golden Age had a much lesser degree of collective participation, but since "no one was superior to anyone else except on the basis of piety and virtue" in Islam, and following the example of Muhammad, later Islamic rulers often held public consultations with the people in their affairs.

The legislative power of the Caliph (or later, the Sultan) was always restricted by the scholarly class, the ''ulama'', a group regarded as the guardians of Islamic law. Since the law came from the legal scholars, this prevented the Caliph from dictating legal results. Sharia rulings were established as authoritative based on the ''ijma'' (consensus) of legal scholars, who theoretically acted as representatives of the Ummah (Muslim community). After law colleges (''madrasas'') became widespread beginning with the 11th and 12th century CE, a student often had to obtain an '' ijaza-t al-tadris wa-l-ifta'' ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in order to issue legal rulings. In many ways, classical Islamic law functioned like a constitutional law.

Bangladeshi Islamic scholar Khandaker Abdullah Jahangir said in a scolarly interview about Islam and democracy that,

Salafi view

Salafi scholars opine that democracy is haram in Islam, but they legitimize the opportunity to use democracy to come to power and to vote to establish Islamic rule and encourage voting to choose the better between evils, among these scholars are Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Uthaymeen, Abdullah al-Ghudayyan, Abdullah Quyud, Abdur Razzaq Afifi, Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia: Grand Mufti Shaykh Abdul Aziz Ash-Shaikh, Shaykh Abdul Muhsin Al-Abbad, Shaykh Wasiullah Abbas and Saudi Arabia's most senior fatwa panel of scholars, "Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta", all echoed similar calls to encourage Muslims to vote.

Khandaker Abdullah Jahangir in his book ("Hadiser Namey Jaliyati") (Forgery in the Name of Hadith) says about the interpretation of Hadith of democratic Islamist parties about Islamic politics ,

Shia Islam

According to the Shia understanding, Muhammad named as his successor (as leader, with Muhammad being the final prophet), his son-in-law, and cousin Ali. Therefore, the first three of the four elected "Rightly Guided" Caliphs recognized by Sunnis (Ali being the fourth), are considered usurpers, notwithstanding their having been "elected" through some sort of conciliar deliberation (which the Shia do not accept as a representative of the Muslim society of that time). The largest Shia grouping—the Twelvers branch—recognizes a series of Twelve Imams, the last of which (Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Hidden Imam) is still alive and the Shia are waiting for his "reappearance".

Theoretical perspectives on democracy

Al-Farabi

The early Islamic philosopher, Al-Farabi (c. 872–950), in one of his most notable works ''Al-Madina al-Fadila'', theorized an ideal Islamic state which he compared to Plato's '' The Republic''. Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet, instead of the philosopher king envisaged by Plato. Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by Muhammad, as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with God whose law was revealed to him. In the absence of the prophet, Al-Farabi considered democracy as the closest to the ideal state, regarding the republican order of the Rashidun Caliphate as an example within early Muslim history. However, he also maintained that it was from democracy that imperfect states emerged, noting how the republican order of the early Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun caliphs was later replaced by a form of government resembling a monarchy under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties.

Varieties of modern Islamic theories

Muslih and Browers identify three major perspectives on democracy among prominent Muslims thinkers who have sought to develop modern, distinctly Islamic theories of socio-political organization conforming to Islamic values and law:

* The rejectionist Islamic view, elaborated by Sayyid Qutb and Abul A'la Maududi, condemns imitation of foreign ideas, drawing a distinction between Western democracy and the Islamic doctrine of ''shura'' (consultation between ruler and ruled). This perspective, which stresses comprehensive implementation of sharia, was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s among various movements seeking to establish an Islamic state, but its popularity has diminished in recent years.
* The moderate Islamic view stresses the concepts of ''maslaha'' (public interest), '' ʿadl'' (justice), and ''shura''. Islamic leaders are considered to uphold justice if they promote public interest, as defined through ''shura''. In this view, ''shura'' provides the basis for representative government institutions that are similar to Western democracy, but reflect Islamic rather than Western liberal values. Hasan al-Turabi, Rashid al-Ghannushi, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi have advocated different forms of this view.
* The liberal Islamic view is influenced by Muhammad Abduh's emphasis on the role of reason in understanding religion. It stresses democratic principles based on pluralism and freedom of thought. Authors like Fahmi Huwaidi and Tariq al-Bishri have constructed Islamic justifications for full citizenship of non-Muslims in an Islamic state by drawing on early Islamic texts. Others, like Mohammed Arkoun and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, have justified pluralism and freedom through non-literalist approaches to textual interpretation. Abdolkarim Soroush has argued for a "religious democracy" based on religious thought that is democratic, tolerant, and just. Islamic liberals argue for the necessity of constant reexamination of religious understanding, which can only be done in a democratic context.

Secularist views

In the modern history of the Muslim world, the notion of secularism has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with foreign colonial domination and the removal of religious values from the public sphere. Traditional Islamic theory distinguishes between matters of religion (''din'') and state (''dawla''), but insists that political authority and public life must be guided by religious values. Some Islamic reformists like Ali Abdel Raziq and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha have advocated a secular state in the sense of political order that does not impose any single interpretation of sharia on the nation, though they did not advocate secularism in the sense of a morally neutral exercise of state power. The Islamic scholar Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im has argued for a secular state built on constitutionalism, human rights and full citizenship, seeking to demonstrate that his vision is more consistent with Islamic history than visions of an Islamic state. Proponents of Islamism (political Islam) reject secularist views that would limit Islam to a matter of personal belief and insist on implementation of Islamic principles in the legal and political spheres. Moreover, the concept of 'Separation of Powers' was propounded by Ruhollah Khomeini.

Muhammad Iqbal

The modern Islamic philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, viewed the early Islamic Caliphate as being compatible with democracy. He "welcomed the formation of popularly elected legislative assemblies" in the Muslim world as a "return to the original purity of Islam." He argued that Islam had the "gems of an economic and democratic organization of society", but that this growth was stunted by the monarchist rule of Umayyad Caliphate, which established the Caliphate as a great Islamic empire but led to political Islamic ideals being " repaganized" and the early Muslims losing sight of the "most important potentialities of their faith."

Muhammad Asad

Another Muslim scholar and thinker, Muhammad Asad, viewed democracy as perfectly compatible with Islam. In his book ''The Principles of State and Government in Islam'', he notes:

Viewed from this historical perspective, 'democracy' as conceived in the modern West is infinitely nearer to the Islamic than to the ancient Greek concept of liberty; for Islam maintains that all human beings are socially equal and must, therefore, be given the same opportunities for development and self-expression. On the other hand, Islam makes it incumbent upon Muslims to subordinate their decisions to the guidance of the Divine Law revealed in the Qur'ãn and exemplified by the Prophet: an obligation which imposes definite limits on the community's right to legislate and denies to the 'will of the people' that attribute of sovereignty which forms so integral a part of the Western concept of democracy.

Abul A'la Maududi

Islamist writer and politician Abul A'la Maududi, conceived of an "Islamic state" that would eventually "rule the earth". The antithesis of secular Western democracy, it would follow an all-embracing Sharia law. Maududi called the system he outlined a "theo-democracy", which he argued would be different from a theocracy as the term is understood in the Christian West, because it would be run by the entire Muslim community (pious Muslims who followed sharia), rather than ruled by a clerical class in the name of God.

Maududi's vision has been criticized (by Youssef M. Choueiri) as an

ideological state in which legislators do not legislate, citizens only vote to reaffirm the permanent applicability of God's laws, women rarely venture outside their homes lest social discipline be disrupted, and non-Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements required to express their loyalty by means of paying a financial levy.

L. Ali Khan

Legal scholar L. Ali Khan argues that Islam is fully compatible with democracy. In his book, ''A Theory of Universal Democracy'', Khan provides a critique of liberal democracy and secularism. He presents the concept of "fusion state" in which religion and state are fused. There are no contradictions in God's universe, says Khan. Contradictions represent the limited knowledge that human beings have. According to the Quran and the Sunnah, Muslims are fully capable of preserving spirituality and self-rule.

Javed Ahmed Ghamdi

Religious scholar, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi interprets the Quranic verses as ''The collective affairs of Muslims are run on the basis of mutual consultations'' (42:37). He is of the view that all the matters of a Muslim state must be sought out through consultations.The parliamentary bodies would provide that platform to practice and implement those consultations.

Views of the general Muslim public

Esposito and DeLong-Bas distinguish four attitudes toward Islam and democracy prominent among Muslims today:

* Advocacy of democratic ideas, often accompanied by a belief that they are compatible with Islam, which can play a public role within a democratic system, as exemplified by many protestors who took part in the Arab Spring uprisings;
* Support for democratic procedures such as elections, combined with religious or moral objections toward some aspects of Western democracy seen as incompatible with sharia, as exemplified by Islamic scholars like Yusuf al-Qaradawi;
* Rejection of democracy as a Western import and advocacy of traditional Islamic institutions, such as shura (consultation) and ijma (consensus), as exemplified by supporters of absolute monarchy and radical Islamist movements;
* Belief that democracy requires restricting religion to private life, held by a minority in the Muslim world.

Polls conducted by Gallup and PEW in Muslim-majority countries indicate that most Muslims see no contradiction between democratic values and religious principles, desiring neither a theocracy, nor a secular democracy, but rather a political model where democratic institutions and values can coexist with the values and principles of Islam.

Islam and democracy in practice

Obstacles

There are several ideas on the relationship between Islam in the Middle East and democracy. Waltz writes that transformations to democracy seemed on the whole to pass by the Islamic Middle East at a time when such transformations were a central theme in other parts of the world, although she does note that, of late, the increasing number of elections being held in the region indicates some form of adoption of democratic traditions.

Following the Arab Spring, professor Olivier Roy of the European University Institute in an article in ''Foreign Policy'' has described political Islam as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy, such that "neither can now survive without the other".

Orientalist scholars offer another viewpoint on the relationship between Islam and democratisation in the Middle East. They argue that the compatibility is simply not there between secular democracy and Arab-Islamic culture in the Middle East which has a strong history of undemocratic beliefs and authoritarian power structures. Kedourie, a well known Orientalist scholar, said for example: "to hold simultaneously ideas which are not easily reconcilable argues, then, a deep confusion in the Arab public mind, at least about the meaning of democracy. The confusion is, however, understandable since the idea of democracy is quite alien to the mind-set of Islam." A view similar to this that understands Islam and democracy to be incompatible because of seemingly irreconcilable differences between Sharia and democratic ideals is also held by some Islamists.

However, within Islam there are ideas held by some that believe Islam and democracy in some form are indeed compatible due to the existence of the concept of ''shura'' (meaning consultation) in the Quran. Views such as this have been expressed by various thinkers and political activists in the Middle East. They continue to be the subject of controversy, e.g. at the second Dubai Debates, which debated the question "Can Arab and Islamic values be reconciled with democracy?"

Brian Whitaker's 'four major obstacles'

Writing on The Guardian website, Brian Whitaker, the paper's Middle East editor, argued that there were four major obstacles to democracy in the region: 'the imperial legacy', 'oil wealth', 'the Arab–Israeli conflict' and ' "militant" Islam'.

The imperial legacy includes the borders of the modern states themselves and the existence of significant minorities within the states. Acknowledgment of these differences is frequently suppressed usually in the cause of "national unity" and sometimes to obscure the fact that minority elite is controlling the country. Brian Whitaker argues that this leads to the formation of political parties on ethnic, religious or regional divisions, rather than over policy differences. Voting therefore becomes an assertion of one's identity rather than a real choice.

The problem with oil and the wealth it generates is that the states' rulers have the wealth to remain in power, as they can pay off or repress most potential opponents. Brian Whitaker argues that as there is no need for taxation there is less pressure for representation. Furthermore, Western governments require a stable source of oil and are therefore more prone to maintain the status quo, rather than push for reforms which may lead to periods of instability. This can be linked into political economy explanations for the occurrence of authoritarian regimes and lack of democracy in the Middle East, particularly the prevalence of rentier states in the Middle East. A consequence of the lack of taxation that Whitaker talks of in such rentier economies is an inactive civil society

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