THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 104, April 18, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
A DEMOCRATIC ISLAM?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
RELIGION, POLITICS, & GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS -- ISLAM, AUTHORITARIANISM, & CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY:
CAN ISLAM BE REFORMED IN SUCH MANNER AS TO BE MADE COMPATIBLE WITH CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY?
ISLAM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO EVOLVE IN A CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC DIRECTION, BUT MIDDLE EASTERN
TRIBALISM & THE EXISTENCE OF A COMPELLING & POWERFUL ISLAMIST MOVEMENT OBSTRUCT MODERNIZATION & THE
DEVELOPMENT OF CONSTITUTIONALISM, THE RULE OF LAW, CITIZENSHIP, CIVIL LIBERTIES, SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENT
& RELIGION, EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS, GENDER EQUALITY, & THE OTHER PREQUISITES OF A GENUINELY
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC STATE
FULL STORY:
There's an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents,
kings, emirs, and various other strongmen – and it's accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore
College in the Middle East Quarterly ("Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?") concludes that "In all but the
poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights."
The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam,
their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy.
I disagree with that conclusion. Today's Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than innate
features of Islam. Put differently, Islam, like all pre-modern religions is undemocratic in spirit. No less than the others,
however, it has the potential to evolve in a democratic direction.
MARSIGLIO OF PADUA
Such evolution is not easy for any religion. In the Christian case, the battle to limit the Catholic Church's political role
lasted painfully long. If the transition began when Marsiglio of Padua published Defensor Pacis in the year 1324,
it took another six centuries for the Church fully to reconcile itself to democracy. Why should Islam's transition be
smoother or easier?
To render Islam consistent with democratic ways will require profound changes in its interpretation. For example, the
anti-democratic law of Islam, the Shari‘a, lies at the core of the problem. Developed over a millennium ago, it presumes
autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, emphasizes God's will over popular sovereignty, and encourages violent
jihad to expand Islam's borders. Further, it anti-democratically privileges Muslims over non-Muslims, males over females,
and free persons over slaves.
MAHMUD MUHAMMAD TAHA
For Muslims to build fully functioning democracies, they basically must reject the Shari‘a's public aspects. Atatürk
frontally did just that in Turkey, but others have offered more subtle approaches. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a Sudanese
thinker, dispatched the public Islamic laws by fundamentally reinterpreting the Koran.
Atatürk's efforts and Taha's ideas imply that Islam is ever-evolving, and that, to see it as unchanging, is a grave mistake.
Or, in the lively metaphor of Hassan Hanafi, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cairo, the Koran "is a
supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn't want."
Islam's problem is less its being anti-modern than that its process of modernization has hardly begun. Muslims can
modernize their religion, but that requires major changes: Out go waging jihad to impose Muslim rule, second-class
citizenship for non-Muslims, and death sentences for blasphemy or apostasy. In come individual freedoms, civil rights,
political participation, popular sovereignty, equality before the law, and representative elections.
Two obstacles stand in the way of these changes, however. In the Middle East especially, tribal affiliations remain of
paramount importance. As explained by Philip Carl Salzman in his recent book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle
East, these ties create a complex pattern of tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism that obstructs the development
of constitutionalism, the rule of law, citizenship, gender equality, and the other prerequisites of a democratic state. Not
until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched, can democracy make real headway in the Middle East.
Globally, the compelling and powerful Islamist movement obstructs democracy. It seeks the opposite of reform and
modernization – namely, the reassertion of the Shari‘a in its entirety. A jihadist like Osama bin Laden may spell out this
goal more explicitly than an establishment politician like Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but both seek
to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order.
Islamists respond two ways to democracy. First, they denounce it as un-Islamic. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan
al-Banna considered democracy a betrayal of Islamic values. Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb rejected
popular sovereignty, as did Abu al-A‘la al-Mawdudi, Founder of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami political party. Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, Al-Jazeera television's imam, argues that elections are heretical.
Despite this scorn, Islamists are eager to use elections to attain power, and have proven themselves to be agile
vote-getters; even a terrorist organization (Hamas) has won an election. This record does not render the Islamists
democratic, but indicates their tactical flexibility and their determination to gain power. As Erdogan has revealingly
explained:
"Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to
your stop, you get off."
Hard work can one day make Islam democratic. In the meanwhile, Islamism represents the world's leading
anti-democratic force.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, April 17, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, April 17, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5517
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
American Foreign Policy -- Constitutional Democracy:
U.S. Promotion of Constitutional Democracy in Foreign Countries
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
-------------------------
Constitutional Democracy & Other Political Regimes
Modern Constitutional Democracy:
Fundamental Character & Essential Ingredients
Constitutionalism: The First Essential Ingredient
of Modern Constitutional Democracy
Dictatorship: The Opposite of Constitutionalism
Representative Democracy: The Second Essential Ingredient
of Modern Constitutional Democracy
Direct Democracy & Representative Democracy
Political Culture & Modern Constitutional Democracy
Modern Constitutional Democracy:
Summary & Conclusion
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity