The question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy has been a highly debated issue for both the West and the Muslim majority world since the beginning of the 20th century. Scholars of history have often argued that there has been a clash of civilizations between Western and Muslim civilizations throughout history and that Islam will always be in conflict with secular democratic principles. The increase of globalization has also made this issue more important as coherent relations between Western and the Muslim majority societies have become increasingly vital in maintaining global prosperity.
Despite, the commonly held view by historians that Islam is incompatible with democracy, scholars of Islam in Western societies have been able to argue the contrary, and that the relationship between Islam democracy goes back farther than most historians have recognized. In Professor John Esposito’s work Islam and Democracy he states that the notion of Islam being incompatible with democracy has been a major misconception that has often been often repeated by historians and researchers of Islam and in his essay he reflects upon modern day examples of Muslim majority societies that display democratic principles in their governments as he states:
“The Turkish experience reflects the fact that many Muslims, whether living in formally secular or formally Islamic states, see democracy as their main hope and vehicle of effective political participation. One important dimension of this participation is that despite conservative Muslim opposition to the idea of rule by a woman, the three largest Muslim states in the world -- Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan -- have had or now have elected women as their heads of government.”
Thus, as Esposito makes clear modern day examples of Muslim Majority democracies are showing that Islam is not inherently incompatible with democracy. In fact, if one looks further into the development of western civilization we find that Islam has made a valuable impact on the development of the ideals associated with democracy and the secular nation state today. Social Anthropologist Robert Briffault makes note of this fact in his famous work The Making of Humanity:
_”The ideas that inspired the French Revolution and the Declaration of
Rights that guided the framing of the American Constitution and inflamed
the struggle for independence in the Latin American countries [and
elsewhere] were not inventions of the West. They find their ultimate
inspiration and source in the Holy Koran”
If the Qur’an was a guiding source for construction of some of the major documents and revolutions that occurred in the West, what has kept the Muslim majority world from seeing its potential and economizing similar movements? This is an important question to answer which I shall further discuss later. But first, to further elucidate on the issue of Islam’s compatibility with democracy and its implications in modern times one must look at the Qur’anic standpoint as well as the historical establishment of Islamic Polity in order to come to a proper understanding of the democratic principles of Islam and its role in a Qur'anic society.
Quite possibly the most important issue that needs to be addressed when discussing Islam’s compatibility with democracy is its ability to create a fair and pluralistic society. The treatment of religious minorities in an Islamic state has been a major case of issue for some critics of Islam. In fact, many critics who have misperceived Islam’s outlook on rights especially in light of the pluralistic, universal message of the Qur’an and neglected parts of history have referred to a coined term dhimmitude to classify the unequal treatment of religious minorities in an Islamic society.
However, if one examines history they will find many examples of Muslim societies being able to create just and pluralistic societies. Most notably with this issue if one looks at the earliest Muslim communities they will find that the 7th century Charter of Medina established the first successful pluralistic constitution based nation state in history. The society itself was composed of a mixed population of Muslims, Jews, Pagans and other religious groups that were present in the Arabian Peninsula, with each citizen playing a major role in the social and political structure of the society.
Basic Equal Human Rights of all citizens provided by the Charter
All citizens were given equal rights in categories such as:
1. Freedom of Religion and Worship,
2. Protection of Honor, Security of life and property
3. Freedom of Speech and Right to Assembly.
4. The Right to fair trial. All people were innocent until proven guilty. Equality was especially stressed in each case. Not even a political leader could push their way through the court system or influence a verdict.
5. Just economic welfare.
6. Gender Equity
7. Employment, Shelter, Medical care and later education
8. Emancipation of Slaves since God is the only Master.
9. Nothing allowed for men was prohibited for women.
All of the above principles were vital in establishing the foundations of a Qur’anic state and were similarly essential to the construction of secular democratic societies; hence there should be no question that there is inability in Islam to create a stable pluralistic society based on equal rights. An additional point that has often recurred in the discussion of equal rights is the misconception of the term jizyah. Contrary, to commonly held belief by historians, the term jizyah which appears once in the Qu’ran(9:29) does not apply to a poll tax of non-Muslims but rather a recompense due to damages done by war aggressors and is paid by either financial means or by labor. In fact, there was no poll tax against non-Muslim populations in the Islamic state of Medina.
The notion of jizyah as a poll tax became a common later practice under Muslim monarchial societies who began to move away from guidelines of the economic system prescribed in the Qu’ran and began to incorporate the economic principles that were upheld of their previous religious or cultural heritages. In the state of Medina, the only means of income were provided by the state, labor and the produce of land. If Medina was able accommodate a decree of equal human rights for its citizens similar to modern day secular democratic societies the next question that needs to be addressed is how were the laws of the society decided upon?
Structure of Civil and Political Law Process
Another important issue in the discussion of democratic principles of an Islamic state is the political and civil construction of the government in the state of Medina. Similarly, with the secular democracies of today, the state along with the Medina charter on citizen’s rights was based on a Constitution, which were the prescribed laws of the Qur’an. This held a unique implication as in addition to the fact that no human had the right to rule over another human, all rulings were based upon the guidelines of the Qur’an which left minor details to be determined by the society in accordance with changing times.
These minor details where decided by the society and by bodies of officials through a very a important concept referred to as shura, which means consultation, or consensus by a body or group of people. This concept formed the basis for democratic principles in modern times as government officials decided upon affairs according to voting democratically based on Qur’anic guidelines and laws preserved in the Qu’ran as well as individuals deciding upon community issues and societal conditions in a similar manner.
42:38 - And who respond to their Sustainer, and establish the Divine System and who conduct their affairs by shura/ شورا /(mutual consultation).---
12:40- All rulings of law belong to Allah alone.--
These two verses serve as essential principles that are taken into account in the construction of a government in a Qur’anic society. The inclusion of verse 42:38 displays that the success of all civil and political processes of a society are inextricably dependent on the opinions and settings of the population. This important verse, which unfortunately became neglected by some Muslim scholars throughout history allows the ethics of the Qur'an to be universal and applied to different settings and times. Although, the Qur’an draws an important distinction from all modern day nations, the rulings even through mutual consultation must be made by the extracted principles of the Qur’an.
However, this does not imply that these ethics are to be forcefully applied on the society without agreement and discussion against their will. Each law must be decided in the most reasonable and just manner, taking both individual and collective welfare into account. The extraction of these principles ensure that each person’s rights and potentials are upheld. A few modern day Muslim majority countries have attempted to draw their own laws closer to the values of a Qur’anic society and have began to reconstruct their governments based on the Qur’anic principles.
Most notably the government of Pakistan has attempted be in the forefront of Muslim majority countries to construct some of their civic laws in line with Qur’anic ordinances while at the same time taking into account the settings of modern day with certain laws. For example in 2005, the Pakistani parliament amended the nation's law against adultery to a short term jail sentence or a fine rather than light floggings as done traditionally or the illegitimate and barbaric practice of stoning practiced by some radicalist groups.
Although many Muslim based societies have slighty differered in their ideas of reconstruction of the Islamic law, amendments such as the one by Pakistan are displaying that the fundamental philosophy held for the movement towards the future Qur'anic society, is not to recreate the setting of 7th century Arabia nor is it absolutely necessary to apply these laws exactly as how they have been done in the past centuries in Muslim societies. Modern day Muslim majority democracies, have been showing that the main goal in the process towards reform lies in rationally analyzing, the text and finding ways to promote its ethics to the settings of a modern, open, and pluralistic society.
For behind each law, command and ethic that the Qur'an has given there is an underlying guideline that must be recognized. As many modern scholars of Islam have noted, the likelihood of widely recreating the exact type of Islamic political states that existed during reign of the Rightly guided Caliphate with the Qur'an as the constitution or in centuries later in medieval times is not possible. While this observation is true, it does not negate the idea of the concept of a reformation and rejuvenation of Islamic societies into a modern, progressive mode based upon Qur'anic principles. Mainly, with this notion what needs to be addressed is the fact that some of the novel concepts and essential ethics that are contained in the Qur'an have yet to be largely recognized or applied in terms of modern settings.
The approaches to the interpretation of the Qur'an and the Islamic law have almost always been looked at in terms of traditional and cultural precedence or historical connectivity, rather than scientifically analyzing the basis behind the ethics of the Qur'an, and applying them to changing times. Many modern majority Muslim societies have neglected that the first and foremost obligation that the Qur'an calls people to is not for all individuals to conform to ideas of theology, clerical bodies or a nationalistic culture, but rather to accept certain ethics of maintaining peace and security between all societies. The Qur'an lays out some basic ethics for societies to uphold and to use their reason and creative powers to apply and expand upon them in their own societies.
The acceptance of the ideas of maintaining peace, security and development for all mankind is in fact the deen(system/obligation to the creation) that the Qur'an prescribes for mankind, the Qur'an provides such global ethics that mankind should uphold regardless of belief system. With this notion kept in mind, an agreement of essential principles between the wide range of viewpoints from believers in the book and by religious minorities should be a viable notion for modern times.
Modern Muslim Reformists such as Egyptian scholar Nasr Abu Zayd and Syrian writer Muhammad Shahrour have been in the forefront in expressing their hope in contributing to create a more universal, modern and ethical based interpretation of Islam that is grounded in the extracted principles of the Qur'an, rather than the traditional and monolithic view of Islam. For many reformists such as them, the concept of freedom and liberty in societies has shown to be an essential factor for keeping societies progressive and allows individual citizens to create their own unique national identities and cultures, but they must be in terms of each society.
Although, the societies themselves will be shaped largely by the views of majority in the the population, coercion of ethics that are placed as personal obligations would most certainly violate the main principle of liberty that is present in the reformist philosophy.
Rather than compulsion of ethics, what needs to occur is the merging of the ideas of liberty and societal ethics. For ethics that are not implemented as societal obligations, what can be done by citizens in the populations is the establishment of persuasive agencies and policies which promote the ethics of the population.
Hence, the use of guidance from the Qur'an in modern times for many reformist is being shown to be possible and if applied correctly will produce the types of just, progressive and open societies that the Qur'an projects for the future. The goal of this movement, lies in using the Qur'an and modern settings in determining the division of the ethical responsibilitys to be upheld between the society at large and the individual followers of the book as a personal obligation.
Thus, the essence and key to creating the modern Qur'anic society is to construct individual policies and national constitutions that contain the extracted civil, social and political ethics of the Qur'an for each particular society and time. But if the laws in Medina were constructed through the guidelines of the Qur’an the effect that this had on the process of electing leaders and the power they held is another issue that must be addressed.
Election of Political Leaders
In the state of Medina, all people were able to propose names for the office-holders who were required to accept this nomination on their own free will. Thus, if they accepted their nomination they would pledge an allegiance bay’ah/بَيْعَة of confidence from the people. During this time the Prophet Muhammed was nominated and accepted by the people of the Medina as the Leader of the State. However, in modern times the Qur’anic guidelines such as shura, bay’ah and nomination allow the incorporation of democratic principles in election of leaders in a Qur’anic society.
Additionally, in the state of Medina, if one possessed a special knowledge or skills in particular field not known by the majority of the public such as (business, economics) they too were able to propose their own names for nomination for a particular government position. Just as modern nation states today have particular provinces or local states which a headed by governors or ministers, the state of Medina was divided into seven provinces each headed by a Waali(governor or guardian) who would be accepted by the citizens of the province through the system of allegiance. An interesting fact of the Qur'an is that it does not forbid one take any political leadership role based upon theological points as long as they accept to trust in keeping peace, security based upon the basic established guidelines of the society. This includes one refraining from sticking to ideas and actions that disrupt peace,order, development and service of the society(Shirk) as displayed by the following verse.
9:18 -" The only people fit to administer the Masjids (the centers of order, societal production and service of development in the creation ), are ones who have trust in creating peace and security with God's creation(Amina =trust to maintain, peace,security,development and service to the creation and in accountability for ones actions in the creation(Yaum Al-Akhir=Last Day/Period=Yaum Ad-deen=future period of obligation,repetitive habit of peace, justice and progress, recompense and the ultimate just analysis, accountability and judgement of all actions and occurences in the creation). And, they strive to establish the Divine System(Salaat- Divine system or actions that move towards development and security of the creation) , and to set up the Just Economic System of Zakaat and fear none but the laws that God has established in the creation. They are the only ones who are rightly guided."
Any dispute amongst the local population was decided by the societal governing bodies based upon the notions of consultation. Additionally, one should note that similarly with constitution based secular democracies today there was no clergy or priesthood that was allowed to take office or rule over the people since all rulings were decided by the society in accordance with the Qur’an as the constitution.
As I have shown by the above examples, if one looks at both historical precedence and the Qur'an they will find more than enough support for the notion that Islam is capable of creating dynamic, pluralistic and democratic society. However, if this is true, one might ask what has kept these principles of the Qur’an and historical precedence from manifesting permanently in today’s Muslim majority societies?
Reasons for the Struggle to establish Democracy in today’s Muslim Majority nations
Although, Muhammad had established an exemplary model for a Qur’anic society, as the Qur'an spread to different parts of the world the Islamic law began to substantially change from the intended message of the Qu’ran. In a few centuries after the death of the Muhammad and the end of the rightly guided Caliphate, the empires that sprung out the Middle East began to separate the Qur’an from the state law and instead implemented laws created by monarchs and hired religious scholars. Furthermore, religious leaders began to form schools of thought (Madhabs) which often were influenced by the previous religious or cultural traditions from which they originated.
Quite possibly, the most notable factor that contributed to the separation of Qur'an and State were the compilation of Hadith or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Many of the compiled hadiths are not based on written documents but oral traditions centuries after the Prophet and are often in direct contradiction to the Qur’anic ordinances and they effectively served the motives of the elites to preserve their cultural and religious practices.
The practice of collection of many hadiths thereby began to create many dissenting sects as each hadith collector catered toward a particular culture and ideology. As a result, many Qur’an interpretations began to be intentionally misconstrued by schools of thought and gave contradicting interpretations to the original intended meaning of the Arabic text. One noteworthy example of this phenomenon can be seen today in the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca an event which according to the Qur’an is intended to be an international conference or summit in which all people can participate in rather than a religious duty only for Muslims.
Although, the Qur’an does not allow any other book to be an authority in law making, the Muslim religious scholars around the 8th century began to block the Qur’anic message by stating that the Qur’an alone cannot be used as a source of guidance and that their has to be another source of law outside the Qur’an that makes the Islamic law clearer and effective such as hadiths or books written by scholars which described how to implement laws that were not in the Qur’an. Since these hadiths and other sources of law written by religious leaders were heavily influenced by the elites of the time this began to lock the Islamic law inside a particular line of thought and culture.
Medieval Muslim scholars soon began to lose focus on learning the original flexible arabic dialect and the universal message of the Qur'an that promotes a system to unite mankind not on the basis of theological belief but rather unite them on the notions of peace, security, development and commonality in species. Unfortunately, as it is even continued to be misuderstood today, Islam soon began to be construed by some scholars as a static, monolithic religion and culture that promoted ethnocentricity, adherence to a school of thought and denouncement of diversity of culture.
Consequently, jurists of the time began to see the process of following taqlid (tradition or precedence) as a praiseworthy act and the only way to implement Islamic law effectively despite the fact that it was contrary to ordinances in the Qur'an. Moreover, since all of these groups come from different perspectives outside the Qur’anic guidelines there has been a lack of coherence in Islamic political thought that continues today. Each religious leader calls for a particular school of thought to be implemented that is often not in accordance with the one of the times,the Qur'anic text or the views of the general population. Thus, historical analysis of early Islamic civilizations has shown to be very vital for the case made by many modern Muslim reformists.
Although, due to the heavy political influence of canocial Muslim history that is now widely ready today, what has also shown to be needed by modern reformists is research and discovery of earlier texts that have been neglected or kept hidden in the earlier centuries. Interestingly, some scholars have stated that some of the recently discovered pre-"canonical" neglected texts of Muslim history not only are more compatible with the Qur'an, but in fact reveal a history that is drastically different than what is contained in the canonical texts.
But,regardless of historical research the main source of a drastic reform in Muslim world lies in extracting the guidelines of the Qur'an to modern settings. Since the beginning of the 20th century, many reform movements and Muslim intellectuals began to realize that the path in establishing a successful modern societies relies on basing government affairs on the principles of the Qur’an with the use of reason to construct implementation of laws to be in accordance with changing times.
The Future of Democracy and Islam
Many Muslim majority countries have now began to realize the benefits of establishing a democratic society and in fact are beginning to see it is as inherently compatible with the message of Islam. Nations such as Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan have already shown signs that they are ready to undertake the necessary steps in reconstructing their governments to become model Qur’anic societies for other countries in the Muslim World to follow. As Muslim majority nations begin to look back at historical precedence as well as the Qur’an’s message they will be able to establish stable democracies based on Qur’anic principles. Before the world can unite I believe that the movement of Muslim majority nations toward democracy is the first step that must be taken in order to eventually establish a global order based on peace, equality and justice for all mankind in the future.