Islam & Democracy
April 29th, 2007Is Islam compatible with democracy ?
The answer to the question carries insight to the situations present in many countries at the moment. Whether it be the unrest in the north west of Pakistan or the strict laws of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, religion of Islam is plays the pivot role.
The golden era of Islam was in the times of first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar. The selection of these caliphs was not a democratic process. The people who appointed them on the seat of caliphate were in the form a council formed by prophet. When prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was on his death bed, he appointed a council and asked them to choose their caliph. As Abu Bakr had been leading prayers in times of prophet’s sickness, council considered him to be the most eligible for the task. Similarly, at the time of selection of Umar, same process was followed.
Without doubt, both of them upheld the morality of leadership to a benchmark, which still finds no parallel. However, their selection was not done by ordinary citizens of the Islamic empire. Their selection was done by the council. Yes, they themselves as great human beings held themselves accountable to every citizen of the empire. Every citizen had the right to object to caliph’s decisions if the considered them to be out of the jurisdiction of Islam and if pressed, court had the independence to call the caliph to answer for his decisions and actions. Such level of independence is not present in any form of government today.
Once appointed caliphs, these men of honor, further appointed government officials in the newly conquered regions on the combined decision of the council. The officials responsible for provinces were muslims as well. This method of appointment though worked flawless in those times, but was still 180 degrees opposite to the idea of democracy. In democracy, the people of that province would have been able to vote for the most eligible person but in this case the appointment used to come from the council.
If during the golden era of Islam, the system followed was not plain democracy, then why are the current muslims trying to find a solution in democracy ?
The caliphs were not elected through a democratic vote but were rather appointed by the council. No doubt, these men exercised their authority in the true sense of fairness and without being biased to any religion in the world in terms of applications of laws to the state citizens. When this is true, that shows that to implement an Islamic system of governance, we have to walk away from democracy.
That is perhaps the reason, most of muslim majority countries are still having a hard time implementing democracy. It is about time we decide what we want for ourselves. If we want democracy then perhaps in due course of time, it might erode some of the values that Islam brings in. If we want a Islamic governance system, we have to bid farewell to democracy.
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Interesting, though not completely accurate.
so, where do you think modern Muslims should finally go? toward abu baker- and omar-kind-of-models or or toward modern day democracies?
I don’t think it’s about the process of electing or choosing the caliphate/president, I think it’s more about personal freedom and equality which never seem to flourish under any religious system, was it Islam or anything else.
“Without doubt, both of them upheld the morality of leadership to a benchmark, which still finds no parallel.”
“No doubt, these men exercised their authority in the true sense of fairness and without being biased to any religion in the world in terms of applications of laws to the state citizens.”
I find both of these statements to be highly questionable, and probably completely untrue.
“If we want democracy then perhaps in due course of time, it might erode some of the values that Islam brings in.”
Which values?
Salamou alaikom,
Sorry but i feel like disagreing with what u said about the council not being a democratic way of electing the leaders.
What is democraty if not giving the right to citizens to choose their leaders? Elections are not the only way to implement democracy.
When u give to people the right to choose their representants (council) and this council chooses the leaders, it is, in my opinion, a democracy.
This is democracy, not you think
Democracy comes in many forms, this kind of democracy is called centralized democracy. It is being implemented in China right now and USSR had it.
Omar > I agree with you where you say
Because, when you are in a democratic system, the state and religion must remain separate. This is to ensure that one religion that is in majority does not subjugate the rights of a religion in minority. When a religious system is in place, it automatically treats the state to be part of the religious exercise and personal freedom and equality in terms of citizenship of the state are not kept balanced.
Yaman > You could find these statements to be questionable only if you have not read Arabic history. And if you think Islam never brought any values then its a totally different discussion, away from the current topic.
Sarkhatalaqsa > You are right here…
But this is not how the council used to be formed. At the death bed, prophet himself formed the council and asked them to choose their caliph from among them. So the initial formation of the council was not by election, but was through assignment.
But the prophet is not going to select the council now. So until the prophet comes down and hand picks his council again, go for a more fair way of picking the leaders.
This is not an Islamic way of picking leaders, it’s your typical tribal method of choosing a leader, almost all the people did it this way back then and vast majority still do this even now.
A very well articulate article ‘ Islam & Democracy” bu Umar Farooq.
The problem with muslim nation is we lost our ability to think independently beyond Kuran, hadiths, Prophet Muhammad and his
companion.How could we build a modern state based on freedom and democracy if we go back in ancient time for role model. It is Kamal Ataturk who laid the foundation of modern state in Turkey derived inspiration from secular Europe. Muslim majority nation need to forward to go ahead and discard the idias of seeking refuge in ancient scripture.
Umar: I am not saying Islam brought no values. I am asking you which values you are referring to.
i think islam does promote democracy, but the way we are implementing it is wrong. there should be a “community” based selection. the concept of a community being where people know each other and a have a raputation. Obviously, the decesion made by a well respected fellow in that community will not be questioned by the community. respected member of different communities are to form a council and then that council is to select a leader. that way, we can have approach to the leader of faction because we will be knowing the leader of our community and he can convey our message to the leader.
Yaman > For example, Islam is very clear on the presence of alcohol in the society and does not permit muslims to be attached with the production, consumption or distribution of alcohol by any means. However, in a democratic environment, where muslims are a minority, alcohol legislation might not cater for this restriction in absolute terms.
Yousuf > Democracy in a community is different from democracy on state level. On community level, you are right in your analysis. However, think about the small christian community in your neighborhood. If they follow the same process, they will have a wise man elected as well. But when this small community is in an Islamic state, they have to abide by the laws of Islam and must remain with the liberties and restrictions implied on them. And then in Islamic system, even if the whole province is christian, the state has the authority to assign a muslim governor. Assignment from federation is not democracy.
It’s great if you have great leaders. Then you don’t need democracy.
But if you have bad leaders, it’s great to have democracy.
I think the basic element of democracy is that the people have the possibility to remove the government from power, if there is significant support, in a peaceful and regular way. Whether they manage to put a better one in place of course depends on many factors.
The bottom line is – there is no perfect system. If you have an ideal muslim appointing an ideal council to elect the ideal next caliph, which again appoints an (ideal) council to elect the (ideal) next one and so on, then clearly you’re not living in the world I know. Where I live, all people make mistakes.
Someone could argue that these mistakes are not really mistakes but instead God/Allah’s will. I hope everyone can imagine why that would not be such a good attitude.
The many comments here underscore the difficulty many have with the concept of a democratic system, and, indeed, how many of the “ideal” countries in the West are far from that. The original concept of the democratic system was to prevent oppression and misrule through the continuation of a lineage based nobility, in which birth and station, rather than ability and statesmanship were the qualifiers for rule. The original Islamic system appears to embrace the former principle of ability, but only allowing the average citizen the right to “criticize” the appointed ruler (and, given the current Muslim worlds tolerance for criticism, a much more perilous avenue) rather than a limited-term, anonmyous vote mass approval system would actually serve the latter, as the ruling cliques can simply assure themselves that they are qualified and able. This is not a problem limited to the above noted sytem, but has come to dominate the American one, as well. While there are exceptions, most of the power held in the US today rests in the hands of an “American nobility”, a relatively small and tight knit society elevated above the masses by wealth, history and connections, who dominate the limited, two-party “democracy”. This system forces all who participate into the limitations of party loyalty and pyramid organized electing, eventually having to vote for another Bush, Kennedy, or similar poster child for the elite. As well, that covers merely the elected portion of the government, not the massive, appointed, jobs-for-life bureaucracy that is the rest of the government iceberg. I personally think that the opportunity exists for Muslim societies to build a true democratic model based on the principles that the early muslim leaders espoused, combined with an able voting representational system. The challenge, though, is not the desire for such a system, but the inability of traditional power structures ( clans, tribes, sub-cultures, and religious establishments) in the Muslim world to risk their authority in subscribing to these principles.
Dominik hit the nail on the head: dictatorship is fine if the dictator is benevolent and has the interests of the people in mind. For example, Singapore might be held as a recent day example. However, dictatorship can, conversely, be terribly awful for the people. The list of terrible dictators is too long to list, but here are a few recent examples: Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot. The benefit of democracy is, indeed, allowing the people to replace their leadership in a non-violent manner (through elections). Without elections, then civil war is usually the means by which the people replace leaders. I like the former option better. Most sane people would. Now, I’ve spoken about dictatorship, but what does dictatorship have to do with an Islamic theocracy? Well, one can think of a theocracy as a subset of a dictatorship. Theocratic rulers are typically ensconced in power by claiming that God has put them there, with no need to consult the people. In reality, it the country’s military machine (who they control) that lets them keep the power.
Iran has tried a hybrid approach: the government has elections, but only allows candidates to run if they meet a strict criteria (with regards to religious beliefs, etc.). It pretty much guarantees that the status quo will be kept. This is really not a true democracy. Kind of a pseudo-democractic-theocratic-dictatorship. Ultimately the people of Iran will get po’d with their leadership, and I suspect a civil war is in their near future (based upon the news I’ve been hearing).
islam and democracy is not different things. because ıslam came for democracy..think about mohammad’s(s.a.v) time..poor people hadn’t any rigths and only wealties had rigths..there were not any justice..someone must say stop to all of them..mohammed came for democracy and justice..islam is democracy.islam is justice.