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Subject: Does Islam Preclude Democracy?
Phoenix Rising    10/4/2002 8:12:37 AM
This is primarily to Muslim, since he seems to be the primary advocate of political Islam here. I've been wondering about this for a while now, just never got it into words. Why should Islam, if there is one particular correct interpretation of it, be inimical to democracy? I'm thinking here particularly in terms of the British parliamentary system, where almost all legislative and executive powers ultimately reside in parliament. If there is anything that all Houses of Parliament universally agree on, it won't make the London Times, but it will definitely get put into effect. I'm not sure that they agree on much more than that the sky is blue, but in principle, if the tenets of Islam were so universal, then they would almost certainly be democratically legislated in the parliament of any Islamic state as easily and uncontroversially as the U.S. Congress does such things as naming federal buildings. Furthermore, in a representative country, a vast majority of which would be theoretically composed of Muslims, any individual or party perceived as un-Islamic would quickly lose power, the way that scandal-tainted politicians tend to collapse here. Parties that eschewed Islam would have little chance of political success. The constitution of an Islamic state would almost certainly permit political lobbying on religious grounds, which I think would be innocuous enough that the West would not raise too many strenous objections, and the mosques tend to be influential and resourceful in the Islamic world. Whenever experts would be called to testify before the legislature, as legislatures are wont to so, they would almost certainly be drawn from Islamic universities and similar institutions. At the moment, the climate there favors the extremists. The prevailing view that there is only "one true interpretation" of Islam means that for one Muslim to disagree with another is practically a challenge to a duel ... and the extremists tend to be the ones who are the most well-armed and the most ruthless. More proportional representation might do some good at moving the debate back towards the center, and might make some of the currently silent centrists, if they're there, feel a greater sense of empowerment and a willingness to take on the extreme elements of society. The inevitable compromises of democratic politics might make it seem like a "pure" interpretation of Islam is getting lost in the mix somewhere. However, the existence of so many different interpretations of Islam as the world stands today seems to indicate that no living human has the 100% perfect solution today. As such, the inevitable compromises seem more likely to bring about a result as close to whatever the "true" interpretation might be as imperfect humans are capable of estimating. In short, there is no reason why a Muslim democracy looks like it would be any less Islamic than an Islamic dictatorship or theocracy ... if that is honestly and truly what the people of the Muslim world really want. I hope that this is what ends up happening in Iran, and hopefully Iraq as well, once Saddam is gone. Time will tell. --Phoenix Rising
 
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American Kafir    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/13/2002 6:24:10 AM
". Especially if we grant a voice to the Dar al-Islam in the United Nations, and the United Nations gets no voice in return in your "perfect" system while non-Muslims are killed all over the world in the name of Islam." >>Dar-ul-Islam won't have a voice in the UN.<< Damn that list of terrorism sponsors....
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/13/2002 10:14:40 AM
muslim: The following remarks go back to your original post on this thread; sorry I haven't been around much to keep the discussion lively. "All I am saying is that we as muslims need to know how to understand Islam, and we can disagree, as long as we don't disagree on the basics." --> Sounds good ... however, do you think it is realistically possible to have a body of 1.3 billion people with even general agreement on the basics of any subjective set of ideas? India cannot do that with ~800 mn Hindus. The West cannot do that with ~1 bn Christians. Islam to all appearances appears to have an even steeper uphill battle to fight on this front, so steep that I'd call it an unscalable cliff: Muslims kill other Muslims on a scale that makes all Muslim/non-Muslim conflicts throughout history look like cheap diversions. "Well, you need to understand that we as muslims have only one refrence for the issues regarding our lives, and that is the Quran and Sunnah. To make the answer short, everything we do in our lives MUST have a refrence in the Quran and Sunnah, and that includes the political system." --> I understand this. My question was, could a system of democracy institutionally similar to a Western-style democracy be interpreted with any legitimacy from the Quran and Sunnah? Are the two fundamentally incompatible, or is it still possible to have the basics of representative government that we enjoy in the West under an Islamic system? Put differently, is the Caliphate the only form of government allowed under the Quran/Sunnah, or does Islam permit the degree of flexibility needed to form a government that could be ideologically similar but institutionally different (i.e., democratic)? "So basically, in an Islamic system, if the ruler is doing something in disobedience of Islam, he is corrected by the people, the scholars, and the judges." --> I understand that this is how it's supposed to work, which is why I asked that question in the first place; it seems to me that the above is a strong argument in favor of separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and so on--Western democratic ideals. However, in every Muslim society that I've studied, ultimate power rests with the sovereign or executive, and even if a judiciary or scholarly panel believed that the ruler was acting against the Quran, they would have no more power to enforce their will on the executive than I personally have to enforce my will on the U.S. President. Less, even, since I can go out and vote for the President's opponent in the next election. AFAIK, not a single Muslim country (save maybe Turkey) has an independent judiciary and the ideological push for one is weak at best. The issues about term limits for executives was one that I hadn't thought of, actually, but it could be another crucial one: any system that involves an executive with a life term is going to look like an archaic monarchy, and the caveat that he can be "removed by the people" isn't likely to impress many people; if the caliph has the kind of power that you suggest that he will have, the people would never be able to unify to the degree necessary to remove a caliph who was abusive of his power (after all, if he was abusive enough to create enough popular dissent that a referendum on his rule would likely remove him, he's also abusive enough to prevent such a referendum from occurring). --Phoenix Rising
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/13/2002 10:37:00 AM
"Dar-ul-Islam won't have a voice in the UN." --> I've noticed you make several references in this mindset already, with the overall theme of Islamic isolationism. This seems to be completely impossible to me, for both internal (to Islam) and external reasons. Historically, every Islamic nation that has gained in power has grown into an expansionistic mindset and sought to convert other lands to Islam by force. I can already see how this could play out into wars with India and Israel, as well as the Iberian peninsula. I can't see how this could possibly change if all Islamic nations were united under one banner. Externally, the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds have far too many economic ties to be severed without utterly destroying the economy of any pan-Islamic state. In addition, many Muslim countries owe debts to non-Muslim countries that are too large to be repaid overnight and would similarly cripple the economy of a fledgling pan-Islamic state if they were to be defaulted upon. In addition, many countries in the greater Muslim world are recepients--often large recipients--of critical aid packages from the World Bank and IMF. Extricating a country from all of those financial commitments cleanly seems to me to be next to impossible. In addition, the entirety of the Muslim world right now from Morocco to Pakistan does not contain enough arable land to grow sufficient food to feed all its members. This would decrease significantly were trade with the outside world to be curtailed, since that would cut off most of the heavy agricultural machinery, irrigation equipment, and so on that would be necessary to maintain and increase food outputs. You've said that you wouldn't cut off trade, as Muslim nations in the past have often traded with non-Muslim societies, but that's beside the point in this day and age: WE would end up cutting off trade, or it would be done mutually, as the economic system you envision would be so incompatible with ours as to make all forms of economic interaction so difficult that most would be more trouble than they would be worth. It would be the same kind of principle that committed the capitalist world to a lack of trade with the communist world; it didn't matter that we each had commodities that the other could have wanted, the systems were so fundamentally incompatible that trade was nearly impossible even had our blocs not had such animosity towards each other. The same principle applies to the U.N.; while isolation might be sought, it would be nearly impossible to achieve. In addition, in one of the paradoxes of politics, attempting to achieve it might make it even harder to achieve. If a hypothetical regime representing 1.3 billion people attempted to secede from the U.N., the U.N. as an institution might let it go, but the international community would suddenly become intensely focused on the Dar-al-Islam, and more than likely, not for the better. The potential is there; the U.N. is not a powerful institution in the sense of using force to retain members, nor is it influential because of lack of concrete commitment to its ideals by the most powerful Security Council members, but it is still the largest multilateral body in the world and retains a strong amount of legitimacy in Europe, which would likely be a region of the world in which the Muslim business community, such as it might be, would have a great deal of interest. --Phoenix Rising
 
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muslim    RE:Islam Precludes Democracy! ~~ Now let's face it!   10/15/2002 2:23:24 AM
"As to the resident Muslim apologist, he's part of the problem! He presents a soft face of Islam that lulls it's victims into believing that we can co-exist. WE CAN NOT! We are marked men in their scheme! If we persist in deluding ourselves, the 'Israeli Nation' model is what we will get, if we are lucky! It's Coming to the time for a real Patriotic GUT check! When a Free People can't send their kids to school, go to the grocery store, gas station or post office without getting whacked, or blown up, it's time for a major political sea change! These Islamist thugs and all who harbor them, need to be destroyed on a level at least equal too the Japs and Nazi's of WWII. Total and unrelenting warfare is the only path to restore security for ourselves and our kids! Sacrifice is the order of the day, start with the Arabs! Start in Iraq! At home find the violent criminals and terrorists and lock em up till execution day!" Hold your horses, when did I ever say that Islam and the west can co-exist? I can't stop you from doing what you want with muslims, all I am saying is that the image portrayed in the media is not accurate, none of the images are; even the ones showing the "muslim-americans" going to the voting polls. You want to kill us all, fine... go ahead, start your campaign, get the American public behind you, and launch a full scale war against Islam and Muslims... After all if you believe that's the way things should be, then you must be right, right?
 
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muslim    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/15/2002 2:55:38 AM
"--> Sounds good ... however, do you think it is realistically possible to have a body of 1.3 billion people with even general agreement on the basics of any subjective set of ideas? India cannot do that with ~800 mn Hindus. The West cannot do that with ~1 bn Christians. Islam to all appearances appears to have an even steeper uphill battle to fight on this front, so steep that I'd call it an unscalable cliff: Muslims kill other Muslims on a scale that makes all Muslim/non-Muslim conflicts throughout history look like cheap diversions." This is possible, but only over a long period of time, and if it is institutionlized. In other words, there is no need for this at first, but once Islam is implemented, the basics will be the first thing taught in school. Besides, muslims already agree to these basics... the idea of one God, the messengership of Mohammed, the validity of the Quran, the existence of world of "the unseen" angels etc., and some of the other mandatory actions, like: Every muslim will agree that they have to pray five times a day, fast, perform the piligrimage once in their lifetime, give the "zakat". These are things that almost every single muslim in the world agrees with, and they are the foundation. Then we have the concepts of Jihad, and the political aspects of Islam, those are very widely misunderstood. The biggest concept that I think muslims need to unite on before anything else is that Allah has the only say in all aspects of life (excluding technology, science, and other administrative aspects). That is something we as a nation lack. And yes, it is hard work, but we have to do it. "Are the two fundamentally incompatible, or is it still possible to have the basics of representative government that we enjoy in the West under an Islamic system? Put differently, is the Caliphate the only form of government allowed under the Quran/Sunnah, or does Islam permit the degree of flexibility needed to form a government that could be ideologically similar but institutionally different (i.e., democratic)?" Even though the two might be similar in some aspects (the caliph is "voted" into power), they are fundementaly different. Because in a democracy, the authority, theoretically, belongs to the people; while in the Islamic system, the authority belongs to Allah. Now this is where the other institutions come into play, the caliph has the right to implement his own interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah in some aspects, as long as his opinion is reached at correctly through the porper analyzation of the Quran and Sunnah; and that's where the scholars and judges come in, they are the ones that decide whether or not his opinion is valid, and the judges are the ones with the authority to remove him if necessary. The people are the watchers, which means that they MUST be educated, because they watch the sholars, the judges, and the caliph, to make sure no one deviates. So what I am saying is that we already have a complete system in Islam, and that is what we use, if some of it seems similar to a democracy, well that's fine, as long as the source is the Quran and Sunnah. "However, in every Muslim society that I've studied, ultimate power rests with the sovereign or executive, and even if a judiciary or scholarly panel believed that the ruler was acting against the Quran, they would have no more power to enforce their will on the executive than I personally have to enforce my will on the U.S. President." I guess it might just your choice of words, but in a caliphite, ultimate authority does not belong to the caliph. He only implements what has been shown to be a valid opinion(backed by proper refrence from the quran and sunnah), he is allowed his own opinion, but if that opinion is not valid, he must change it. And valid doesn't mean right or wrong, I may think it is wrong, but if it is properly reached at, it is still valid. BTW, he is NOT allowed to implement any one opinion when it comes to the issues of worship. If you really look at, that really doesn't give him much power. "if the caliph has the kind of power that you suggest that he will have, the people would never be able to unify to the degree necessary to remove a caliph who was abusive of his power" They need that much power, the is a judciary court for that. The real danger would come when he has full control over the Army, then even the judges won't be able to stop him. And to solve that problem, every govermental position except the judges and the caliph has a term limit that must be set by the caliph, so as that no governor or military officer will have too much power with the people. The caliph also has no authority to remove any of the judges. It really is a system of checks and balances, no one has supreme authority over everything else. However, there is one point, which if it gets too weak, the entire system can suffer, and that is the people. If the people become uneducated or too detached from polit
 
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muslim    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/15/2002 3:11:58 AM
Well, the issue of trade and the UN is very complex, but I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge. First, regarding the UN... Let me ask a question, does the US allow the UN to interfere in any of it's domestic or foreign practices? I believe the answer is no, correct me if I am wrong. The point here is simple, no super-power in it's sain mind would allow any other authority to interefere in it's affairs, any of them. Islam is no exception, we have our way of dealing with our issues, if are domestic laws are to strict for some people, they are allowed to leave, no one will force them to stay. As for the foreign aspect, we have rules for that, ones that I am 100% positive that no one will oppose to. The main reason is because this Islamic state must be able to have absolute say in what rules are implemented, and which ones are not, the same applies to what they produce, or who they support. As for trade, I believe oil will be a very important aspect in this discussion. What will happen to oil prices? All I know is that it will be sold for how much it is worth. As for food, the state will rely on trade, as well as agriculture; those two are the biggest two. But the one thing you forgot to mention is that the state will eventually expand into large territories spanning from, most likely, morrocow to pakistan, might even include indonesia. Where will we get all the weapons and resources to produce enough weapons to protect this LARGE area? Also, where will we find enough gold and silver to be used as currency? AND, how will we prevent people from taking the gold out of the country? These are all question that will no doubt need to be dealt with, I don't have enough knowledge or experience to answer them, but I am confident that the right answer will be reached at eventually.
 
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American Kafir    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/15/2002 6:41:29 AM
PR: "sorry I haven't been around much to keep the discussion lively." See, I told you he'd let you evade the question if you asked. Must be one of them there Democrats who can't shoot straight.
 
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Matt Smith    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/15/2002 5:23:02 PM
>>Because in a democracy, the authority, theoretically, belongs to the people; while in the Islamic system, the authority belongs to Allah. There is your major problem in a nutshell. This is obsolete reasoning from a liberal democratic point of view. King Charles I of England was executed for promulgating the Divine Right of Kings. King Louid XVI was also executed, the 'Sun King' justification for absolute monarchy couldn't even fool the French for more than two generations. The Western political experience does not recognise a rulers claim to divine mandate as being legitimate unless the people happen to agree with it. Any schizophreniac if he is eloquent enough can claim to be serving Allah's will, that's no reason to appoint him Caliph let alone for life. The autocratic model is too primitive to serve effectively in the 21st Century, material wealth, information and education are too diffuse among all levels of society and as these resources are shared political power must also be shared or civil unrest is inevitable. Dictators everywhere are fighting a rearguard action against these irresistible fruits of civilisation.
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy?   10/17/2002 3:47:24 PM
muslim, I'm sure you completely believe in the viability of this totalitarian system you describe, but everything I've read about your proposed political, economic, and social models simply makes me more and more alarmed. Realistically, any state erected along the lines that you advocate would turn into another Iran, or possibly more like the UAR that lasted from 1958-'61 or so when Egypt and Syria temporarily united. "Besides, muslims already agree to these basics... the idea of one God, the messengership of Mohammed, the validity of the Quran, the existence of world of "the unseen" angels etc." --> This is nearly irrelevant as far as political science and nation-building are concerned; Christians share a great many beliefs in common, but it hasn't stopped Catholics and Protestants from killing each other in Northern Ireland and it never stopped Christian fundamentalist regimes of the Dark Ages from oppressing others who were Christian as well but didn't happen to share the particular tenet involving knuckling their foreheads to the Christians who happened to have the best weaponry at the time. "The biggest concept that I think muslims need to unite on before anything else is that Allah has the only say in all aspects of life" --> This is where I really start to grow alarmed, though less so here than later. I understand that you believe that it is possible to divine with complete certainty the will of Allah on all matters of government and economic from the Quran and Sunnah, but pragmatically, this is impossible. All it will do is establish a cause for whoever has the most power to establish themselves as the 'legitimate' representative of Allah to interfere with the private lives of every citizen under his rule (I use "his," but it could just as easily be a party or group of clerics). Any interpretation of "the will of Allah" will necessarily pass through the lens of human perception, and therefore cannot possibly be completely accurate and also cannot be objectively verified as genuine or not. As such, it will of necessity become a human opinion masquerading as a divine edict, which is an incredibly dangerous animal, as any student of Western or Far Eastern history can tell you. The advantage of democracy is we admit that everything is ultimately determined by humans. We expect humans to be wrong on a regular basis, so we've built in mechanisms for change and adaptation into our political, economic, and social lives. Realistically, no system based on the precept of an infallible being determining the rule can be that flexible, and no fallible human can perfectly interpret the will of any infallible being, either. You've continually made the assumption that the will of Allah can be accurately determined from the Quran and Sunnah, and have gone on to tell me what exactly that is, but my challenge goes deeper than that: I don't believe that it is possible for any human to completely know the mind of God and believe that it is megalomaniacal (or, more bluntly, deranged) to claim so. I know Catholic priests who have decades of religious service under them and can recite entire books of the Bible verbatim who would still completely scoff at the idea that anyone could accurately determine the will of God. Sure, we can list the Ten Commandments and so on, but all of those leave far too much room for interpretation to become accurate foundations for legislation. If we can't even do it from the Bible, which we understand to outline the will of God only in terms of sweeping guidelines, it will certainly be even more fruitless to attempt to divine all the particulars of an advanced political, economic, and social system from the Quran with any degree of certainty. When you say, "we already have a complete system in Islam ..." I can only say that the system you've described cannot be made to function by any standard of comparative politics or comparative political economy of which I'm aware. The mechanisms you've described for expressing the will of all groups institutions save the caliph are either nonexistent or underdeveloped, and the division of power you put forth seems completely artificial. Any such state, especially encompassing as wide an area and vast a population as you suggest with the current composite resources of that area, would almost instantly degenerate into a totalitarian autocracy along the lines of the Soviet Union, only without the technological prowess of the USSR. I wish you luck and I commend your willingness to work towards promoting understanding, but if your system ever appeared on the verge of taking root anywhere, expect resistance not only from the West, but from the indigenous people of whatever region are at risk of falling into its oppressive grip. --Phoenix Rising
 
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muslim    RE:Does Islam Preclude Democracy? to Matt smith   10/18/2002 3:23:37 AM
"The Western political experience does not recognise a rulers claim to divine mandate as being legitimate unless the people happen to agree with it." Islam can't, and SHOULDN'T be implemented unless people want it to be implemented. "The autocratic model is too primitive to serve effectively in the 21st Century, material wealth, information and education are too diffuse among all levels of society and as these resources are shared political power must also be shared or civil unrest is inevitable." From what I understand, you are comparing the Islamic system to the christian system(if there is one). I am not claiming it will be perfect, or that the ruler will be perfect; I have said this a lot, but I don't think you understood it, in order for an Islamic system to work without chaos and civil wars is if the People understand Islam at least enough to know when the ruler is implementing laws that are not part of Islam. Since the people must understand this, it becomes a prerequiste to an Islamic system. I think that you look at it you will agree that if the majority of the people (including the scholars, judges, governors, military) understand Islam and agree that it should be implemented, they won't allow any major deviations to occur (such as the ones we see in "Islamic" countries).
 
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