Zaki Milad (*)

Democracy and the Nature of the Problem
Islamic thought in its general manifestation still suffers from a disturbed relationship with the issue of democracy, and encounters difficulties in settling its stance towards the latter. This is so much the case that within the trains of Islamic thought there are multiple differing and sometimes colliding points of view that reveal the disparity in levels of development, accumulative achievements and openness, both intellectual and political, between trends and discourses of contemporary Islamic thought.

We find those who define their stance on the basis that democracy is an inextricable and inseparable ingredient of western thought and philosophy. And then there are those who believe that it is possible to extricate and separate democracy as a method of administration, organisation of power and building political society from those aforementioned particular intellectual and philosophical dimensions. There are those who think that Shura [consultation] in Islam is an alternative to democracy in western thought, and those who think that democracy is in Islam and must be revealed and observed. Equally, there are those who believe in the possibility of combining democracy and Shura, and do not see an opposition or clash between them, in addition to those who see in democracy unbelief, pillaging and an imitation of what is foreign. For them, democracy is a departure from Islamic statutes and a rebellion against God the Almighty’s command.

Until today the level of intellectual and political debate within Islamic thought has not developed sufficiently with regard to democracy. Although the subject has been taken on, it has become one of those ‘afflicted issues’, according to the jurisprudential expression, despite the rise in discussion over it since the last decade of the 20th century. As long as the level of this debate fails to develop, that clash will remain a part of it, expressing the state of conflict in the structure and composition of contemporary Islamic discourses.

Perhaps what this issue has revealed more than anything else is the crisis characterising Islamic political thought, and the emaciated jurisprudence and constitutional growth from which this thought still suffers. The general framework of that crisis is defined by the nature of the view taken by political Islamic thought on the concept of the state, and the jurisprudential and constitutional inadequacy (which may be described as dangerous) in building a new vision of the concept of the modern state. Such a vision would be fundamentally different to all of the models inherited in the history of Islamic thought, which, even with their many names, are united in their substance, whether the partisan, nationalist or sultanate state, or the emirate of might, victory and conquest, or other names which portray the reality of the state in the history of Islamic societies since the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The question is, how did this conflict come about, or rather, how do we explain it in relation to contemporary Islamic thought on the matter of democracy?

To learn the answer to this question, we may talk about three historical contexts which perhaps contribute towards revealing the nature of the factors, the foundations and developments attributed to that conflict. These historical contexts belong to three epochs at unevenly spaced intervals. The first pertains to the period from the ancient era until what came after the Rightly Guided Caliphs; the second pertains to the modern era – known as the Islamic Reform Era in the nineteenth century AD; and the third pertains to the contemporary era after the establishment of the modern Arab state, in the second half of the twentieth century.

This means applying what the French historian Fernand Braudel called the long-term approach to history, which is taken when a subject of research makes it necessary. It is linked to the historical roots stretching far into our past, but is still effective and fruitful.

When we point to the existence of this type of historical context, it does not mean magnifying history and studying it thoroughly - particularly with ancient history - rather it means encapsulating the issue as much as possible, capturing its elements and constructing a cohesive analysis.

Shura – between Text and Historical Experience
Contemporary Islamic writings have judged that the concept of Shura comes at the top of constitutional concepts in the Islamic political system, the community of Ulama [scholars] and constitutional jurisprudents. Just as Farid ‘Abd al-Khaliq puts it, they put the Shura – as an Islamic duty and a primary constitutional principle – at the forefront of public principles and fixed precepts which were decreed by the Quranic texts and Hadith. His words are reiterated by what is said by ‘Abd al-Hamid Mutawali in his book ‘Principles of the Governing Regime in Islam’, which holds that Shura is what the ulama agreed to always put at the top of the most important constitutional principles which the governing regime undertake in Islam.([1])

This view is shared by Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams ad-Din, who says:

‘The principle of Shura in public affairs must be the most important of the political constitutional principles for all Muslims, for in keeping with the evidence of this principle in the Holy Book and the Sunna, political rule (except for the inviolable ruler), and action in the community’s public affairs are only legitimized if they rest on the principle of Shura’([2])

Equally, for him, Shura is one of the most important principles comprising the concept of the ‘Umma’, and the concept of the political community in Islam.

Contemporary Islamic tracts overflow with discussion of this concept and of its eminence, value and status, and of its advantage and preference over all of the concepts that belong to other systems of thought, including the concept of democracy.

Certainly there are no objections to this concept on the part of the text, but the question is, what about the application of this concept in the historical experience of the ruling regime in Islamic communities?

Ibn Khaldun, in his introduction to the chapter ‘On transforming the Caliphate into the Monarchy’, set aside an explanation of how the Caliphate changed into the monarchy after the era of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs. He concluded this chapter by saying:

‘It was clear that the Caliphate existed without the monarch to begin with, and then both of their meanings became obscure and changed. Then the monarchy came to stand alone when its fanaticism became separated from that of the Caliphate’([3])

When Dr Radwan as-Sayyid traced the changes and mutations which have occurred to the concept of Shura within the framework of his discussion on Shura between the text and the Umma’s historical experience, he found that this concept began to shrink, narrow and transform from the very first century [Hijri], and specifically in the second half of it. According to him, this is demonstrated by the Hadith and the tradition that was spread in the fifties and sixties of the first century, when the Caliphate was thirty years old, and then under Malik [King] Adhud.

At the beginning of the third century Hijri, Shura – which as Dr as-Sayyid adds meant the authority of the total sum or the greater majority - began to assume more of a moral quality at the expense of social and political dimensions. In this context the verse

 ‘their affairs are decided by Shura’ [al-Shura: 38]

which makes Shura a special structural characteristic in the Umma was neglected. Instead there was a focus on the second verse

‘Consult them in matters, and when you are resolved, put your trust in God’ [Al ‘Imran: 159]

and it was said that Shura had been delegated and was not an obligation. It was dependent on there being an absence of resolve on the part of the prince or ruler, for if he was resolved then had no responsibility except before God. 

Dr as-Sayyid concluded from his historical pursuit that the political dimensions of the word Shura became gradually fainter until they completely disappeared. In books on the rulings of the Sultanate, different attributes and qualifications for the Caliph appeared, and the Sultan authority was no longer eulogised for being the authority of Shura, and qualifications of the authority and of the Sultan were restricted to two: efficiency and might.

Efficiency means the ability to repress internal fitna [civil disorder].

Might means the ability to repel the external aggression .([4])

When Malik Bin Nabi talks of democracy in Islam, and what he sees as the organic relationship between the two, he thinks that we are at liberty to consider democracy in Islam, not at the time when Islamic traditions were incapacitated and their radiance lost, as is the case today in general, but at the time of their inception and growth in society. People recognise, and history confirms, that Islamic traditions sprang up at the time of the Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) and in the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. If we agreed – and the words are Ibn Nabi’s – on this perspective, which is the perspective of Islamic jurisprudents, that the democratic project laid down by Islam was en route to being realised for almost 40 years. During this time the psychological precepts were laid down to be the moral foundation for Islamic democracy([5]). Ibn Nabi continued to describe this period as the era of the creation of democracy. After that the decline began, according to his representation.

What we want to focus our attention on in this historical context are two issues:

1) This is connected to time, and how the time period of the Shura experience in Islamic society was so very short, after which we inherited a long epoch in which, to put it mildly, Shura was not clearly manifest. In more obvious words, we inherited a long period of despotism in which the concept of Shura was abandoned. It was dislodged from political life after the dissolution of the emirate of might, victory and conquest, and after despotism had one of the natural components of the sultanate state in Islamic political society.

2) This relates to conditions: how the concept of Shura was cut off from political and legal growth, from development and from participating in the construction of institutions and the formation of the Islamic political state and society. This was after work on the concept of Shura declined.

Therefore the concept of Shura remained a general and controversial concept, and its moral dimensions remained clearer than its political and legal dimensions. The concept of Shura in Islamic political history did not contribute towards developing the concept of the state of the Umma [nation], a state in which the Umma would be the source of authority and legitimacy. In another sense, the concept of Shura did not contribute towards developing and anchoring political participation for the Umma, or in creating or forming a state to replace the sultanate state. So, for long eras in the history of Islamic political society, the latter state dominated; the state in which the Sultan was everything, and there was no space for the concept of the Umma.

Hence the concept of Shura reached us empty of political and legal content, and lacking transparent and creative applications and experiments. It had not developed institutionally in such a way as would have identified practical tools and methods within it, and revealed its political, legal and moral content and dimensions.

Consequently, we had no choice but to occupy ourselves with what has occupied us for a long time, asking in a superficial dialectic way if Shura is compulsory or instructed? As if we did had not recognised the idea of Shura until today! I do not know whether it is permissible to describe this occupation as a useless one or not, because it is an occupation which neither brings us forward nor takes us back, and because we have remained at this stage for a long time, arguing and bickering and squabbling over the concept, without achieving any results on the ground, and in our political lives.

The Age of Islamic Reform and Democracy
A small selection of Muslim reformers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries [AD] participated in the European political and constitutional experiment with regard to two important and influential issues: one had a theoretical nature, and the other a substantive nature. Both relate to the comparative field.

Sometimes the comparison falls into the conceptual realm, i.e. where there was opportunity to review Islamic political concepts, such as that of Shura, freedom and Ijma’a [consensus], and likewise the concepts of state, authority and constitution. And sometimes the comparison falls into the factual realm, i.e. where it was possible to examine the political and constitutional developments in Europe on the level of ruling regimes, administrative authorities and state building, and the binding of governance to the constitution and the formation of representative councils which gave the Umma a forum for political participation, and the end of individual despotic rule. This examination created a forum for comparison between what we were doing politically and constitutionally, and between what had happened to the ruling regimes in Europe.

Some of those Muslim reformers explained how they alerted people anew to the concepts of Shura and Ijma’a after they had examined the European experiments. In this context came Shaikh Muhammad Rashid Ridha’s famous text when he responded to a reader who sent a letter to al-Manar [magazine], in which the reader talks of restricting reform in Islam. Rashid Ridha replied in 1907 by saying: 

‘Do not, oh Muslim, say that this type of government – bound by Shura - is one of the basic foundations of our religion, and that we have simply inferred it from the Quran and the life stories of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and not as a result of associating with the Europeans and being acquainted with the conditions of Westerners. If it were not for consideration of the condition of those people, then you and those like you would not have thought that this came from Islam… I do not deny that our religion benefits us in that, but despite all this, I say that had we not mixed with Europeans then we as a nation or nations would not have been alerted to great matter, even if that was blatantly clear in the Holy Quran’([6]).

This view is similar to that of the leading jurisprudent Shaikh Muhammad Hussain al-Na’ini in his defence of the system of government bound by the constitution in his famous book ‘Alerting the Umma and Honouring the Creed’ where he says:

‘What terrible ignorance, servants of the oppressors and the bearers of religious tyranny, with all our examples of the Quran and the Sunna, the rulings of the Sharia and the biographies of the immaculate Prophet and blessed Imam, are we instead going to say with respect to universal consultation, ‘this is our merchandise coming back to us, and we consider it a violation of Islamic law’. It is as if we had not read those verses whose connotations are clear, and had not received their meanings.’

At another point he says:

‘As for today, we have achieved some degree of alertness and consciousness, and we have started, with embarrassment, to take the requirements of our religion from foreigners, saying that these are our merchandise returning to us’ ([7])

From a third geographical area – Pakistan - Muhammad Iqbal expresses a similar view, in his discussion on the lack of transformation of the concept of Ijma’a in the Islamic Sharia into a fixed legislative regime in the past, because, according to him, it was at odds with the political interests of the absolute government which emerged in Islamic history after the period of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs. Iqbal, with regard to this possibility in the period he summarises, says: ‘It is a cause of great satisfaction that we find that the pressure of new worldwide factors and the experiences of European people in politics may have caused the Muslims to think about the modern era, influenced by the value in the idea of consensus and the possibilities it holds. The growth of the republican spirit in Islamic countries and the gradual establishment of legislative associations in them is a vast step towards advancement.’([8])

On a practical front the Muslim reformists at that time were known for their call for constitutional government to curtail absolutist individualist government, and the call for a representative regime to realise the idea of Shura and to confirm political participation for the Umma. This is what Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and the trend known as the Islamic League movement tried to do.

Al-Afghani continued to advise the rulers of the East, particularly the rulers of Iran and Egypt, of the necessity of binding their governments to the constitution, and working on founding representative councils for the Umma. On this subject, historians mention that al-Afghani prepared a draft of the constitution which he then presented to the Shah of Iran Nasser ad-Din al-Qajaari to make Iran into a constitutional state. In the draft the Shah was subject to the constitution and the consultative council was given the right to issue laws. When the Shah looked over it and found that his competencies had been reduced, and that the Umma had received greater powers through the representative council, he rejected it, objecting that he should be put on a par with the peasant farmer and the labourer. Al-Afghani replied to him:

‘Oh King, you should know that your crown, your throne, your decrees and the bases of your powers will be stronger if they are accompanied by the constitution. The scientist and the labourer and the artist are more useful to the country than your rank and majesty. Hear this from me before it is too late, and do not lose this valuable opportunity for a constitutional government in Iran and the destruction of despotic government.([9])

In Egypt al-Afghani showed the Khedive Tawfiq the pressing need to adopt political reforms in his government by means of creating a new constitution and establishing a representative regime through a consultative council. Significantly, al-Afghani said to the Khedive Tawfiq:

‘If you accept my advice and hasten to allow the Umma to participate in governing the country, then you will decree the running of elections for representatives of the Umma to pass laws, and if you do so your throne will be secured and you power perpetuated.’([10])

The Khedive was uneasy, and fearing al-Afghani, he ordered him to be exiled from Egypt and to be sent on a ship bound for India.

Al-Afghani believed that it was possible to influence kings and sultans and to change the system of absolutist government by means of giving them advice. He is quoted as saying:

‘As for exchanging the absolutist form of government for a form of representative consultation, it is more easily obtained, for sometimes it is enough for the king to be guided and advised by some wise minds close to him for him to do it, with the participation Umma and his Rai’ya [flock, people]. After the experiment he sees the convenience and mutual reciprocity of safeguarding his monarchy, and of strengthening it by surrounding his throne with sections from the rai’ya whose hearts are sincere and faithful and whose love is true, and the constitutional king will have all the might of a king’([11])

This reformatory tactic of inviting representative government continued after al-Afghani in the trend of the Islamic League movement, and perhaps two of its clearest proponents were ‘Abdul Rahman al-Kawakabi in his book ‘The Characteristics of Despotism and the Destruction of Subjugation’, and Shaikh Muhammad Hussain al-Na’ini in his book ‘Alerting the Umma and Honouring the Creed’. Both of them shared in treating political despotism and the system of absolute government by binding government to the system of consultation and the constitution.

It is thus possible to say that Islamic political concepts at this time were clearer in Islamic thought than at any other time, before or after, not in their theoretical and conceptual scopes alone, but also even in their practical determinants and substantive dimensions.

Therefore this period represents to us the most important and mature of sources on the level of Islamic thought on discussion of those Islamic political concepts. Equally it represents to us the most important of historical outpost in the levels of development of Islamic thought. Those concepts represented an axis for reformatory movement, which filled the world’s ears with the force of its momentum, the greatness of its men and the excellence of its discourse.

Islamic Thought in its Contemporary Stage and Democracy
The problem of Islamic thought in its current state is that it did not follow the accomplishments achieved by Muslim reformists in the nineteenth century AD, such as the reforms and innovations in the intellectual and religious sphere. Thus different and divergent trends and paths grew up between them. The divergence was described by some as cognitive rupture whereby the character and nature of intellectual and practical concerns and priorities differed. This rupture is counted as an important reason for the intellectual decline that affected Islamic thought in the contemporary era, stretching specifically from the fifties until the end of the eighties of the last century.

This decline coincided with the establishment of the modern Arab state in the second half of the twentieth century, which entered into conflicts and clashes with Islamic discourses at that time. This was when this state had adopted intellectual and legislative choices from outwith the Islamic system, and from another perspective, the field had opened to non-Islamic ideological revival and growth, which in turn clashed violently with Islamic thought in all of its discourses and trends.

Therefore Islamic thought, in the shadow of these conditions, was inhabited by a premonition of fear over its identity, and it came out in opposition to the intellectual raid and cultural infiltration. Therefore it was no longer able to develop its understanding of democracy which it had thrown out on the ideological battlefield when these ideologies tried to affiliate themselves with democracy and considered it one of their great [social] contracts, the magnificence of which they exaggerated and boasted about. This situation created a psychological barrier which prevented Islamic thought from getting close to the idea of democracy, particularly after it was seen at times that this idea was inseparable from secularism, and at other times that its referential affiliation was to liberal philosophy. This correlation and affiliation imposed intellectual, cultural and value related barriers in front of Islamic thought, preventing it from approaching and interacting with the idea of democracy. The masters of these ideologies contributed towards repelling Islamic thought in order to form an obscure image for it, as being unripe for democracy.

For this reason, Islamic thought during this phase viewed democracy predominantly from the latter’s doctrinal and philosophical perspective, and it was this perspective that Islam and the Islamic regime conflicted with. This is discussed by Dr Muhammad al-Mubarak, in 1968, in his book ‘Modern Islamic Thought and Combating Western Ideas’. Democracy, as he sees it, is

‘…a political system in Europe, which is associated with ideas and concepts to do with the individual and society, and which emanates from a philosophy that Islam does not accept. It may conflict with Islam’s philosophy and perception in many of its dimensions. Democracy is built on one fundamental idea, which is that the individual is the foundation in the state, and the state is moreover created for his interest. He has complete freedom in his behaviour, whether that be in his economic, ethical or intellectual actions, and the state’s role is restricted to coordinating the liberties of individuals so that they do not collide. This philosophy differs greatly from the Islamic perspective, and it leads to parity between faith and atheism in the field of thought, and between libertarianism and asceticism in the field of morality, and between decadent and tyrannical capitalism and commitment to the interests of the community. Islam does not accept parity between these trends, and does not grant unlimited freedom, which leads to emptiness, depravity and oppression…. In short, if we considered democracy to be a self-reliant social doctrine, then we cannot say that it comes from Islam, or that Islam accepts it. In reality, they are two different doctrines in their foundations and roots and philosophies and in the results of their applications.’([12])

This was the stance taken by Shaikh Abu Al-‘Ala al-Mawdudi in his book ‘The Theory and Direction of Islam’, and Muhammad Qutb in his book ‘Contemporary Intellectual Doctrines’, and as-Sayyid Kadhem al-Ha’iri in his book ‘Bases of Islamic Government’. Today, the majority of those who reflect this view are from what are called the Salafi societies.

In general we may say that Islamic thought in this phase was governed by a mentality of ideological struggles, and therefore it became preoccupied with the procedure of generally comparing and contrasting which aimed to confirm and consolidate the distinction, disparity and disagreement between Islam and Islamic thought and between all other ideologies, which reached us from both western and eastern Europe.

In this context, Islamic thought achieved an important accomplishment on the level of compositions and writings, which display differing methodological expertise and academic qualifications. In this framework equally, the understanding of and stance towards democracy was identified. Attention was given to comparing it with Islam in multiple forms. For some the points in common were stronger, others saw the differences as outweighing each other, while others stressed the clashes.

The truth of the matter is that position of Islamic thought on democracy at this stage was going backwards, and it did not proceed towards developing its knowledge of it. Islamic thought cut itself off from what had been achieved by the Islamic reformers in the age of Islamic Reform, and it did not adopt or have recourse to its achievements. For the most part, the stance of Islamic thought towards democracy remained confusing, tense and competitive.

The New Objective in Islamic Thought and Democracy
With the 1990s, features of change and renewal in Islamic thought’s vision of the issue of democracy began to appear. This change and renewal grew and accumulated, even as rising tensions were preserved. The incentive for this change was a combination of overlapping and intertwined factors, subjective and objective, intellectual and political, local and international.

It was found that Islamic thought was itself in need of self-renewal, and of critical examination in order to develop its intellectual discourse and its cultural threads. In this framework there was a rapprochement with the idea of democracy, just as the experience of the Islamists in government contributed towards confirming the need for this democratic objective, and strengthened this objective with the renaissance of what is known within Islamic thought as the Reformist or centrist or moderate trend, in addition to the acceptance by some of the Islamic trends to join in political participation on the basis that they commit to the tenets of democracy. There was also the democratic revival witnessed by the world which swept away the eastern military camp in Europe, and propelled the winds of democracy which descended in many parts of the world.

Perhaps this was the most prominent of factors, backgrounds and climates which propelled Islamic thought towards the idea of democracy, and towards reviewing its dimensions and constituent parts.

Therefore this objective in Islamic thought started to clearly reflect its vision and stance on democracy and to defend this stance and openly avow it.

Some of the most pivotal proponents of this objective were Shaikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, Shaikh Yusuf al-Qardawi from the Sunni Islamic school, and Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams ad-Din, and as-Sayyid Muhammad Khatemi from the Shi’a Islamic School. These, as it is known, were proponents of the revivalist and reformist objective in contemporary Islamic thought, and influenced its contemporary trends and threads.

Shaikh Muhammad al-Ghazali has remained focussed on democracy since his book ‘Political Islam and Despotism’, published in 1949. In this he considered that Islam and despotism were polar opposites which could not converge, and how, according to him, this had vanished from the consciousness of the activists in the Islamic field. When they invoked Islam, they forgot what it had given the world in terms of experience of struggling against oppressive rulers who treated it badly and taught it to define its relationship with them in controlled constitutions and governed laws([13]).

In his book ‘A Constitution of Cultural Unity Among Muslims’, published in 1980, he objects to what Muhammad Qutb refers to in the second part of his book ‘The Curriculum of Islamic Education’ when he positions Islam opposite democracy. Shaikh al-Ghazali found that this opinion needed to be regulated, since democracy is not a religion to be put in the same category as Islam, rather it is an organisation for the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and we look to it to explain how individual honour was accorded to the supporter and the opponent at the same time, and how the legal fences were constructed to prevent the individual from oppressing, and to encourage the dissenter to shout out ‘no’ in a loud voice.([14])

Proceeding onto his book ‘The Prophetic Sunna among the Ahl al-Fiqh and Ahl al-Hadith’, published in 1989, here al-Ghazali says: ‘It saddens us that Shura reached fruition in many places beyond the Dar al-Islam’. He believed that:

‘One of the particular traits of modern democracy is that it believes that the opposition is part of the general state regime, and that the opposition has a leader who is recognised and mutually agreed upon without difficulty. The possessor of power has those who support him and those who criticise him, and not one of them is more worthy of respect than the other. Indeed this perspective is very close to the teaching of the Rightly Guided Caliphate.’([15])

Turning to Shaikh Yusuf al-Qardawi, we find that he takes a clear stance on democracy. He accords it the status of a Fatwa [legal opinion], and includes it in his book ‘Contemporary Fatwa’ part two, when responding to the question: ‘Is it true that Islam is the enemy of democracy, and that democracy is a kind of infidelity or wrong as has been claimed? Or is this what is said about Islam, and it is innocent?’

Shaikh al-Qardawi replies to this question elaborately and in detail, with evidence from the Quran and the Sunna. What stands out most from his response was this:

‘It is strange that some people rule that Democracy is a blatant wrong or infidelity, when they have not fully understood it, penetrated its essence or arrived at its core, disregarding the representation and the title…. Is democracy – the democracy that peoples of the world have united around, that multiple peoples in east and west have striven towards, that some peopled have achieved after bitter struggles against tyrants, and in which many Islamists see a welcome means of curbing the whims of individualist government, and clipping the talons of political dominance inflicted on our Muslim people – is this democracy a wrong or an infidelity as some hasty superficial commentators reiterate? The essence of democracy, far removed from the academic definitions and terms, means that the people choose who rules them and conducts their affairs, and do not have a ruler or regime they hate imposed on them. The people have the right to hold the ruler to account if he errs, and to dismiss him if he perverts [the course of justice], and the people are not driven to economic, social, cultural or political trends or paths that they do not know about and do not want.

This is the real essence of democracy, of which mankind has found practical forms and methods, such as general elections and referendums and the preponderance of majority rule, multiple political parties, the right of the minority to object, freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary… etc.

In fact, he who ponders over the essence of democracy finds that it is in the very core of Islam, which rejects that people should be lead in prayer when they do not want to be. If this is the case in prayer, then how much more so in the affairs of political life?’

Before concluding his tract, Shaikh al-Qardawi considers that he himself is a claimant of democracy, and says: ‘I am one of the claimants of democracy as a possible and regulated means of achieving our goal in blessed life’.

Shaikh al-Qardawi concludes in his last sentences with the result he has extracted – ‘And therefore Islamic Shura comes close to the spirit of democracy, or I could say that the essence of democracy comes close to the spirit of Islamic Shura’.([16])

According to Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams ad-Din, democracy rests on the principle of Shura, and he believes that democracy has three characteristics, as follows:

1)   Its background is in liberal philosophy.

2)   It is a legislative tool for the administration of power and the rotation of power.

3)   It is a legislative tool for drawing up laws by means of its representative institutions.

Regarding the first characteristic, he says we are not obligated to it as a rational theory, or as a philosophical doctrine. If it is reported that it is considered a formula for the Umma [nation] to rule over itself, then so be it, but from the angle of our Islamic understanding, the Umma’s mandate to rule over itself is not something which is internal to the Umma, for God gave the Umma the mandate to rule over itself. This religious doctrinal background is an imperative.

With relation to it being a tool for the administration of the community and the rotation of power, we do not find in our law any legal text whatsoever, neither in the Quran nor in the Sunna, nor in public fiqh [understanding, or, in Islam, jurisprudence] which forbids reliance on democracy, its methods and institutions in this field.

With relation to the legislative field, as we know, legislation is divided into two big sections: private fiqh and public fiqh. Private fiqh is not the business of society, it is the fiqh of individuals which can be practised in the presence of an Islamic state and regime or in its absence.  Public fiqh [jurisprudence] is connected to the organisation of society, and it encompasses what has been written in the texts and enters into the tenets of the Sharia. Man cannot rule on this.  It contains areas which we might call empty areas, and this includes all organisational and administrative aspects and foreign relations and most economic aspects. These fields are not covered by Sharia rulings except to the extent that they [must] observe the higher principles of the Sharia, such as the rules of non-aggression, justice, equity and so forth. Anything beyond that is the management and planning of organisational matters where people will see what works best.

Where Shaikh Shams ad-Din wants to identify his choice and to summarise his stance he says:

‘We choose Shura as a philosophy of government, and we choose the tools of democracy as implements, apparatus and institutions. Democracy is the best teaching from the perspective of society’s organisation, and from the perspective of a practical administration for the rotation of power.  In short, if you wish to say that I am a follower of democracy on the basis of the principle of Shura than you are correct, and if you want to say that I am a follower of Shura and that I use the techniques of democracy in it, then you are correct.’([17])

With regard to as-Sayyid Muhammad Khatemi, his discussion of his vision in this field differs from others’ form of discussion on the subject, including those whom we have indicated here, and his discussion gains importance, value and influence by virtue of his actual and influential experience with democracy. Democracy twice took him to the position of President of the State in Iran, first in 1997 and then in 2002. This experience inaugurated a new era, known in Iranian political literature as the ‘Khatemi era’, attributed to him.

The value of as-Sayyid Khatemi’s vision is confirmed in his capacity as an observer and studier of the trajectory of western political thought, and that of Islamic political thought.  With relation to this, his published writings include the book ‘City of Politics, sectors of development in political thought in the west’. This is in essence a collection of lectures which he delivered to the students of an advanced specialist course in the Department of Philosophy at Allame Tabataba’i University in the second half of the teaching year 1992-93.

In 1996 he indicated that he was working on putting together a book called ‘The Path of Political Thought in Islam’ (I am not aware of whether this book was published or not). Also in this context, in 2003 he published a book entitled ‘Democracy and Sovereignty of the Umma’. In this he explained his vision of the reconciliation between religion and liberty, and he invoked a concept of religious democracy.

It is possible to identify as-Sayyid Khatemi’s vision of democracy and his relationship with religion in the following points:

1.    Democracy is not necessarily attended by secularism and liberalism, and this is the form it took because of the historical concurrence of the teaching of democracy and the birth of liberalism and secularism, and their meanings became interlinked. Democracy in its narrowest meaning is a route and a means of achieving a political regime, and it is the administration of the people that defines the method and form of government. In the west this led to liberal secularism, and in Islamic society it must lead to a form that complies with the thought of the Muslim people.

2.    There is no alternative to democracy except for despotism and dictatorship. Those who reject the democratic way invoke dictatorship and subjugation, and this is what human societies have been inflicted with over twelve centuries. If we do not respect and favour the democratic way, then we will be faced with nothing but an adherence to government by means of force and domination.

3.    Democracy as a human production and human way is open to multiple criticisms, and there are weak points within it. Every human matter is a target for criticism. If there are negative points to democracy then those points appear to be less damaging than the negative points of a dictatorial regime. Democracy can solve its problems and improve its image by means of experience and taking note of faults.

4.    Democracy is compatible with religion; it is not mutually exclusive with Islam, nor does it contradict it. We do not know of any human alternative to democracy, and this is after the claims of realism and the protection of interests and our public understanding of Islam have been taken into account. If we are not to be frozen and fanatical, and we are to live in our own time and be conscious that thought can develop and mutate, and that thoughts cannot be locked away in a steel prison, then for all of these reasons, we will find no road other than democracy.([18])

These are some of the representations which reveal the new objective that Islamic thought has started to pursue in one of its most important discourses in terms of enlightenment and moderation, and this objective has come to polarize a large and distinguished section of Arab and Muslim scholars, intellectuals and academics.

This objective is considered to be better than presenting a new vision of democracy in contemporary Islamic thought, and better than consolidating the return to it in the formation of knowledge in this complicated and ambiguous issue in the Islamic context.

It may be said: this objective in Islamic thought is the closest to the spirit of Islamic thought in the era of the Islamic reform movement in the nineteenth century AD. It is equally the most capable of accompanying the age and interacting with the world, and equally it is the most capable of completing the mission of renewal of Islamic thought. This rapprochement with democracy is not the end of renewal, it is the beginning.

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(*)  Editor of ‘Al-Kalima’ Magazine, Saudi Arabia.
[1]- Farid ‘Abd al-Khaliq in ‘Political Doctrine – Constitutional Principles’, Cairo, Dar al-Shoruq, 1998, p39.
[2]- Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams ad-Din, in ‘Islamic Political Society’, Beirut, International Institute for Studies and Publishing, 1999, p97.
[3]- ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun. Introduction, formatting and presentation, Muhammad Al-Iskanderani, Beirut, Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1998, p201.
[4]- Radwan as-Sayyid, ‘Politics of Contemporary Islam: Revisions and Continuations’ , Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1997, p273.
[5]- Malik Bin Nabi, ‘Meditations’, Damascus, Dar al-Fikr, 2002, p81.
[6]-Wajeeh Kawtharani, ‘Selected political articles from al-Manar magazine’, Beirut, Dar al-Tali’a, 1980, p23.
[7]- Wajeeh Kawtharani, ‘The project of Arab Revivalism or the Crisis of transitioning from a Sultanate Society to a Nationalist Society’, Beirut, Dar al-Tali’a, 1995, p16.
[8]- Muhammad Iqbal, ‘Renewing Religious Thought in Islam’, translation: ‘Abbas Mahmud, Cairo, Committee for Composition, Translation and Publication Press, 1986, p200.
[9]- Ja’affar ‘Abdul Razzaq. The Constitution and Parliament in Shia Political Thought’, Iran, al-‘Araaf Institute for Publishing, 2000, p13
[10]- Ja’affar ‘Abdul Razzaq, reference as above, p13.
[11]- Muhammad Pasha al-Makhzumi: ‘Selected extracts from Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani al-Husaini’, Beirut, Dar al-Haqiqa, 1989, p79.
[12]- Muhammad al-Mubarak. ‘Contemporary Islamic Thought in Confronting Western Ideas’, Beirut, Dar al-Fikr, 1970, p82.
[13]- Shaikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, ‘Political Islam and Despotism’, Damascus, Dar al-Qalam, 2003, p20.[14]- Shaikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, ‘A Constitution of Cultural Unity Among Muslims’
[15]- Shaikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, ‘The Prophetic Sunna amongst the Ahl al-Fiqh and the Ahl al-Hadith’, Cairo, Dar al-Sharuq, 1990, p164.
[16]- Fahmi Huwaidi, ‘Islam and Democracy’, Cairo, Pyramids Centre, 1993, p149.
[17]- Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams ad-Din, on ‘The Intellectual Debate around Secularism, Shura, Democracy, Civil Society and the Sharia’, Beirut, Mundhir al-Huwar’, 9th year, issue 34, Autumn 1994, p18.
[18]- As-Sayyid Muhammad Khatemi, ‘Studies on Religion, Islam and Our Time’, Beirut, Dar al-Jadid, 1998, p94-103.