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Defining the
relationship between Islam and democracy has been problematic. For,
the confusions and debates pertaining to this subject are not limited
to some Non-Muslim scholars or orientalists, Muslims, too, have been
sharply divided in their understandings and approaches toward
democracy. While the leaders of mainstream Islamic movements and
almost all the distinguished Islamic scholars are of the opinion that
Islam and democracy are compatible, the extremists or the radical
Islamists propagate the opposite. The latter groups reject democracy
by suggesting that "the concept of popular sovereignty denies the
fundamental creed of Islam which is God's Sovereignty."
Democracy, in the eyes of these people, is 'shirk' (polytheism) and
unbelief. Also, there are few ulemas (mostly, the 'court ulemas' i.e.,
the 'pro-establishment' ulemas) in some Middle Eastern countries who
campaign against democracy. As an analyst has pointed out,
"Despite years of research and debate, the relationship between
Islam and democracy remains murky…and (still) misunderstood."
Spelling out the proper relationship between Islam and democracy and
thereby removing these misconceptions are vitally important.
Among the Western
observers who have asserted that Islam and democracy are incompatible,
have based their arguments on the following aspects:" Whereas
democracy requires openness, competition, pluralism, and tolerance of
diversity, Islam encourages intellectual conformity and an uncritical
acceptance of authority. Equally important, Islam is said to be
anti-democratic because it vests sovereignty in God, who is the sole
source of political authority and from whose divine law must come all
regulations governing the community of believers. In the view of some
scholars, this means that Islam has to be ultimately embodied in a
totalitarian state." ( Mark Tessler," Islam and democracy in
the Middle East", 2001)
The 'Islam-bashers' have gone further and commented
that "the notion of popular sovereignty as the foundation
of governmental legitimacy, the idea of representation, or elections,
of popular suffrage, of political institutions being regulated by laws
laid down by a parliamentary assembly, of these laws being guarded and
upheld by an independent judiciary, the ideas of the secularity of the
state, of society being composed of a multitude of self-activating
groups and associations-all of these are profoundly alien to the
Muslim political tradition." (See Elie Kedouri, Democracy and Arab
Political Culture, 1994, pp5-6; also Samuel P. Huntington, "Will
More Countries Become Democratic?",
Political Science Quarterly 99, Summer 1984)
The Western
scholars and analysts who maintain the above notion have almost
unanimously cited the issue of 'sovereignty (of God)'. In addition,
they have referred to: 1) the writings of Sayyid Abul A'la
Mawdudi(1903-1979), the foremost Islamic revivalist thinker of the
twentieth century, which, according to their view, have advocated for
a totalitarian state; 2) the concept of 'Vilayet-e- Faqih" as
suggested by Ayatullah Khomayini(1901-1989), the founding figure of
Iranian Islamic revolution, which is now believed to be followed by
Iran and has created the hegemony of a clergy class; and 3) the
recently defunct Taliban regime in Afghanistan. All these observations
and concerns need to be examined and addressed.
So far as Sayyid
Mawdudi's writings are concerned, those were not against democracy. It
is true that in order to identify the distinction between Islam and
secularism, he wrote, "God is the real law-giver and absolute
legislator. The believers cannot resort to totally independent
legislation nor can they modify any law which God has laid down, even
if the desire to effect such legislation or change in Divine Law is
unanimous," and he also stated that "Islamic state seeks to
mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral
norms and program of social reform. In such a state no one can regard
any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this
aspect the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist
and communist states." (Islamic Political theory, p.30), however,
Mawdudi did not stop or draw his conclusion there, rather, in the same
paragraph, he pointed out that " despite its all-inclusiveness,
it (Islamic State) is something vastly and basically different from
the modern totalitarian and authoritarian states. Individual liberty
is not suppressed under it nor is there any trace of dictatorship in
it. It presents the middle course and embodies the best that the human
society has ever evolved." (ibid, pp.30-31).
Interestingly (or sadly) enough, a large section of Western
(and some Eastern) scholars who are keen to label contemporary Islamic
discourses as 'anti-democratic', often quote the first part of
Mawdudi's above statement and ignore the second part, let alone his
other writings.
In fact, Mawdudi
has made his viewpoints more clear when he explained the question of
'God's Sovereignty' in his seminal work "Islamic Law and
Constitution". As he explained:
"One is apt
to think these fundamental facts (i.e., God's sovereignty and the
necessity of obedience to the Prophet) leave no room for human
legislation in an Islamic state, because herein all legislative
functions vest in God and the only function left for Muslims lies in
their observance of the God-made law vouchasafed to them through the
agency of the Prophet. The fact of the matter, however, is that Islam
does not totally exclude human legislation. It only limits its scope
and guides it on right lines."( Islamic Law and Constitution, tr.
Khurshid Ahmad,1980, p.74)
Those who termed
Mawdudi's views as theocratic have also been grossly mistaken. For,
Mawdudi was not only against the theocracy, he was so blunt against it
that he argued that in a system where a priestly class exercises
unchecked domination and enforces laws of its own making in the name
of God is satanic rather than divine.
He wrote: "The government built up by Islam is not ruled
by any particular religious class but by the whole community of
Muslims including the rank and file. The entire Muslim population runs
the state in accordance with
the Book of God and the practice of His Prophet. If I am permitted to
coin a new term, I would describe of this system of government as a
"theo-democracy", that is to say a divine democratic
Government, because under it the Muslims have been given a limited
popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of God." (Political
Theory of Islam)
Mawdudi was not
merely a theoretician, he was fully involved in Islamic activism and
during 1960s when he was strongly opposing the dictatorial regime of
Ayub khan in Pakistan, he made a statement on the compatibility of
Islam and democracy that removes all the misperceptions about his
position on democracy. As he said:
"Islam and
democracy are not contradictory to each other. Democracy is the form
of government based on the will of the people as well as run and
changed with their consent only. This is also the form of Islamic
government. But the values of western democracy are not identical with
those of Islam." (Selected Speeches
and Writings of Maulana Mawdudi, Vol. 2, p.198)
Yet, to understand
Islam's position on democracy, we believe, one must go beyond
Mawdudi's writings. For, several contemporary Islamic scholars have
explained many issues, including the 'space for human legislation in
Islam' in a relatively clearer manner. Muhammad Asad, for example, has
said that "the shariah refrains deliberately from providing
detailed regulations…. The need for continuous, temporal legislation
is, therefore, self-evident.' (State and Government in Islam, p.43)
Fathi Osman, another contemporary scholar has pointed out that
"every Muslim believes that 'Sovereignty belongs to God' in the
whole universe including the Muslim state, but who represents this
sovereignty in a Muslim state? The jurists, or the ulama in a wider
sense, can not claim divine power….The Quran states that God created
the human beings as a 'vicegerent (khalifa) on earth (2:30) The
prominent commentator Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d.310 H./922 C.E.)
commented on this verse that this vice-gerent is appointed by God to
rule over his creation with Justice" ( Sovereignty of God or
Sovereignty of the People",
Muslim Democrat, January 2000).
Shaikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
the foremost alim (religious scholar) of Islam of our time has said,
"It should be known that the acceptance of the principle that
legislation of rule belong to Allah does not take away from the Ummah
its right to seek for itself the codes necessary to regulate its ever
changing life and worldly affairs. What we seek is that legislations
and codes be within the limits of the flawless texts and the overall
objectives of the shariah and the Islamic message. The binding texts
are very few, while the area of 'permissibility' or legislative-free
space is quite wide." (Priorities
of Islamic Movements in the Coming Phase, p.189).
Rashid Ghannoushi,
another prominent contemporary Islamic thinker and activist has said
that "at the legislative level, the Ummah participates
effectively in enacting the necessary bylaws and regulations for
applying or accommodating revealed divine guidelines to changing
circumstances. Some divine laws assume the form of broad guidelines
that provide the Muslim Ummah with a comfortable margin for
interpretation without undermining the integrity or losing the essence
of the revealed text." (The Basic principles of Islamic State,
quoted in Azzam Tamimi ed., Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat Within
Islamism, pp.100-101)
It is thus obvious
that despite Islam's emphasis on 'God's sovereignty', it does not
oppose democracy but speaks
for it and allows the believers to form such a state. Recognition of
shariah does not eliminate the role of human opinion, or legislation.
"Shura" should be vested in parliament which would be
elected by the people and would have legislative powers. As Rashid
Ghannoushi has made an explicit and conclusive statement: "If
democracy is meant the liberal model of government prevailing in the
West, a system under which the people freely choose their
representatives and leaders, and in which there is an alternation of
power, as well as all freedoms and human rights for the public, then
the Muslims will find nothing in their religion to oppose democracy,
and it is not in their interest to do so anyway." (John Esposito
& John Voll, Contemporary Makers of Islam, p114)
Today, while the
leaders of mainstream Islamic movements everywhere emphasize the
importance of democracy, demand for elections and participate in that
process wherever and whenever they are allowed to do so, the secular
and Islamophobic regimes and their patrons who claim to be the
'champions' of democracy, are creating all the barriers to keep them
out of this process.
With regard to
Ayatullah khomeini's politico-religious thesis, 'Vilayat-i- Faqih' (
the rule of Islamic Jurists), some analysts have already pointed out
that it was originated as a series of lectures during 1969-70
to demonstrate a legitimate base in Islamic jurisprudence for the
assumption of power by the ulema ( and correspondingly showing the
illegitimate nature of the incumbent regime of Shah). It was also an
exhortation to the clergy, many of whom were reluctant to take on a
political role, to become actively involved in politics. Khomeini
found validition for government by the ulema in the juristic tradition
which saw them as the one remaining rightful authority. However,
khomeini's concepts were opposed by a section of his own religious
colleagues. Ayatullah
khui, for example, never endorsed vilayat-I-faqih. (See Vanessa
martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and The Making of a New
Iran). Historically speaking, the concept of vilayat-I faqih
represents a substantial deviation from mainstream Sunni political
theory and so far as twelver shi'ism is concerned, it's an
extraordinary innovation, for shi'ite imams have eschewed the
acquisition of political power since the days of imam Jafar as-Sadiq.
(See Mumtaz Ahmad, ed.,State, Politics and Islam, p.11) Moreover,
recent trends in Iran and the reformists' agendas therein suggest that
not the 'authoritarian clergy rule' but 'the blend of Islamic and
liberal democratic values' is the pragmatic and destined path for
Iran.
The brief
experiment of Taliban rule in Afghanistan and all other problems
thereafter, stemmed mainly from their peculiar geo-political and
cultural setting. Despite their zeal, they were not enlightened, for
they had no proper education and no scholarship whatsoever. Today,
those who point finger at their 'mess', are the ones who brought them
to power to discredit Islam. However, Islamic traditions are rich and
diverse enough that this kind of aberration can't shake those or
create any disillusion in the minds of the people about Islam.
To
conclude, Islamic ideals never advocate the creation of a regimented
and totalitarian society. Absolute rule either in the name of an
individual, family or a group is not allowed in Islam. As the primary
goal of democracy is also preventing the abuse of power through a
systematic means and ensuring the representation and participation of
the people, it comes closest to Islam. For Muslims, democracy is thus
not an alternative to Islam or as better than Islam, rather, it is a
system that complements and carries many of the sublime teachings and
traditions of the Prophet of Islam and his companions. Realizing this
fact, a non-Muslim scholar has rightly exhorted: "Non-Muslims
should understand that democratic values are latent in Islamic thought
if one wants to look for them, and that it would be more natural and
organic for the Muslim world to derive contemporary liberal practices
from its own sources than to import them wholesale from foreign cultures." (Graham
E. Fuller, "The Future of political
Islam," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2002, p.52) This observation
is commendable and it should open everyone's eyes.
Mahbubur Rahman
Editor-in-Chief
April
/
May 2002
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