Many people hold the view that Democracy and Islam cannot
coexist. Various scholars give examples of the Muslim countries that failed to
run as a democratic country especially in the Arab world. – Are the Arab
autocrats supported by the Western nations? If yes, then why? Why few Muslim
nations are democratic?
It is believed that Islam and democracy contradicts each
other, but here we are making a serious category mistake, a logical fallacy. We
fail to acknowledge the definitions that we apply. We usually ascribe meanings
to words that are mostly subjective and at the same time fallacious, such as
many bridges a connection between liberalism and democracy. – Are not these
both terms different? As liberalism is part of culture and religion being a sub
category of it, should not politics and culture be treated separately? If we do
not so, won’t it be the violation of the principles of secularism to include
religion/culture in the political affairs?
Democracy is a multi party political system in which all people are equal and have the authority to form their own parliament that will pass laws to be followed by the public. – Does the principles of Shura (consultative decision making) and Ijma (consensus) are obligatory or non –binding? As in Islam, God is the sole creator and has the right to make laws, and its peoples responsibility to follow them so is to correct to give the Parliament the right to pass or reject the laws (whether it’s against Islamic Sharia or not)? Should the Muslim countries adopt only some of the aspects of the Western termed democracy, like equality, majority rule?
2 comments:
When you pose questions like what features of democracy Muslim countries adapt or should it just be pick and choose. Well the thing is that Muslim community from Prophet times had been practicing very fundamentals of democracy but as a society Muslims are required to adhere to the law provided in the scripture and describe in Sunnah. So it is a theocracy fundamentally which do allow for the promotion of democratic ideals in certain aspects. At the same time although the parliament has certain domain for making decisions but sovereignty overall belongs to Allah and his word(Quran and Hadith at times).So no ultimate power is vested in the parliament as we see in the Western democracies.
When you pose questions like what features of democracy Muslim countries adapt or should it just be pick and choose. Well the thing is that Muslim community from Prophet times had been practicing very fundamentals of democracy but as a society Muslims are required to adhere to the law provided in the scripture and describe in Sunnah. So it is a theocracy fundamentally which do allow for the promotion of democratic ideals in certain aspects. At the same time although the parliament has certain domain for making decisions but sovereignty overall belongs to Allah and his word(Quran and Hadith at times).So no ultimate power is vested in the parliament as we see in the Western democracies.
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