Introduction

Popular stereotypes in the West tend to posit a progressive, rational, and free West against a backward, oppressive, and threatening Islam. Public opinion polls conducted in the United States during the 1990s revealed a consistent pattern of Americans labeling Muslims as “religious fanatics” and considering Islam’s ethos as fundamentally “anti-democratic.”1 These characterizations and misgivings have, for obvious reasons, significantly worsened since the tragedy of 9/11.

However, these perceptions are not reflected merely in the popular consciousness or crude media representations. Respected scholars also have contributed to this climate of opinion by writing about the supposedly irreconcilable differences between Islam and the West, the famous “clash of civilizations” that is supposed to be imminent and inevitable, and about the seeming incompatibility between Islam and democracy. For example, Professor Peter Rodman worries that “we are challenged from the outside by a militant atavistic force driven by hatred of all Western political thought harking back to age-old grievances against Christendom.”

Dr. Daniel Pipes proclaims that the Muslims challenge the West more profoundly than the communists ever did, for “while the Communists disagree with our policies, the fundamentalist Muslims despise our whole way of life.” Professor Bernard Lewis warns darkly about “the historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo–Christian heritage, our secular present, and the expansion of both.” Professor Amos Perlmutter asks: “Is Islam, fundamentalist or otherwise, compatible with human-rights oriented Western style representative democracy? The answer is an emphatic NO.” And Professor Samuel Huntington suggests with a flourish that “the problem is not Islamic fundamentalism, but Islam itself.”2

It would be intellectually lazy and simple-minded to dismiss their positions as based merely on spite or prejudice. In fact, if one ignores some rhetorical overkill, some of their charges, though awkward for Muslims, are relevant to a discussion of the relationship between Islam and democracy in the modern world. For example, the position of women or sometimes non-Muslims in some Muslim countries is problematic in terms of the supposed legal equality of all people in a democracy. Similarly, the intolerance directed by some Muslims against writers (e.g., Salman Rushdie in the UK, Taslima Nasrin in Bangladesh, and Professor Nasr Abu Zaid in Egypt) ostensibly jeopardizes the principle of free speech, which is essential to a democracy.

It is also true that less than 10 of the more than 50 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference have institutionalized democratic principles or processes as understood in the West, and that too, only tentatively. Finally, the kind of internal stability and external peace that is almost a prerequisite for a democracy to function is vitiated by the turbulence of internal implosion or external aggression evident in many Muslim countries today (e.g., Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, and Bosnia).

However, in the context of this discussion, it should be remembered that democracy is, after all, a “contested concept.”3 Its meanings, practices, and outcomes may be very different. Authoritarian regimes may describe themselves as “people’s democracies,” and various western systems of governance may witness democracy’s coexistence with economic disparity, judicial inequity, racial prejudice, social pathology, and feelings of alienation and apathy on the part of many of their citizens.

It is possible, indeed necessary, to deconstruct the concept of democracy into its procedural and substantive aspects. In this sense, it may be considered as a set of practical, legal, and institutional arrangements that ensures constitutional/majority rule, but also, as a political system inspired by a conception of the “common good,” attempts to lay the foundations of a discursive, deliberative, communicative “community” and assumes a commitment to normative and humanistic ideals (“deep democracy”).4

Consequently, on the one hand democracy may focus on such essential procedural elements as holding free, fair, and regular elections; functioning political parties; separating the powers of different branches of government; the possibility of judicial review to uphold constitutional supremacy, and so on. On the other hand, it may emphasize such substantive components as respecting the rule of law, tolerating debate, encouraging cultural inclusiveness, promoting intellectual and aesthetic excellence, embracing the idea of consultation in major decisions affecting the community, insisting on the preeminence of the public interest, pursuing social justice, and ensuring the individual’s dignity, security, and moral integrity.

If we consider the spirit of democracy rather than merely the process, it is possible to suggest that the relationship between Islam and democracy, complex and nuanced as it may be, is not inherently problematic even by western standards. In fact, this paper argues that the current problems experienced by many Muslim countries are not present because of Islam, but in spite of it. This argument will be developed through an examination of the Islamic text (the Qur’an) and tradition (prophetic example), and a consideration of some select periods of Islamic history.