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March 09, 2006
"Is Islam Compatible with Democracy?"
Ann Althouse attends a lecture at her university, given by law school colleague Professor Asifa Quraishi, and provides an account.
What I was tackling in my presentation was the roadblock in this issue that I think is presented by the western tendency to think that the sovereign state should be the location of all law for all of society. Once we are able to re-think the location of legal authority in a society, that some can exist as valid and authoritative, yet outside the realm of public lawmaking mechanisms, then I think that we will have gotten much further to coming up with a system of government and lawmaking and adjudication for Muslim societies that can be (but doesn't have to be, frankly I don't care what it looks like, that's up to them) "democratic" but in a very different model than western nation-state democracies.
I don't have any specific proposal on how this would look, and how it would work (that's something for me to work on for the next several years). I'm just saying that the western model is not the only one, and then I try to push that point by showing how the merging of nation-state model with Islamic law pressures from the people and political movements has actually resulted in the worst of both worlds - i.e. theocratic-type authorities despite the fact that neither Islamic heritage, nor the western model would have chosen that on their own.Well, we know of at least one functioning Middle East democracy where the sovereign state is not the location of all law for all of society. Though that often irks quite a few of the citizens of that country.
But if Professor Asifa Quraishi is looking for models, there is one, not far off.
Alcibiades | 03/09/06 at 10:11 AM | Categories: - Comparative Religion
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» Is Islam Compatible With Democracy? II from Kesher Talk
Last week we ran a post on whether Islam was compatible with democracy - based on a lecture that Ann Althouse attended. The answer was a tentative yes, depending on whether a suitable model could be found in which was... [Read More]
Tracked on March 12, 2006 04:20 PM
Comments
Yes, and, that particular state is not only able to function democratically. It respect the rights of all religious sects to exist within its borders... ...also quite unlike any of its neighbour states.
Lynne | March 9, 2006 01:02 PM
Islam is compatible with Democracy, but Islamic Sharia laws aren't. They're not a problem because they're (supposedly) based on religion - Jewish and Amish laws are also based on religion. Sharia is a problem because it has inspired a campaign of terrorism and genocide in Africa and the Middle East.
They're not objectionable because they're religious, they're objectionable because they're more brutal than nearly every legal system worldwide.
mary | March 10, 2006 12:11 PM
[Sharia laws are] not objectionable because they're religious, they're objectionable because they're more brutal than nearly every legal system worldwide.
But even then, it's not sharia laws in and of themselves. It's the extremist interpretation and application of the sharia laws. Islam, too, has had its golden age.
And part of the time, these extremist positions are promulgated locally through extremely ill-educated imams, in the sense of being ill-educated even in the depth and breadth of their own traditions. Let alone any other kind of knowledge. But the mood of the time in the Islamic world - defensive, so on the offensive everywhere - is going to keep on producing just this mindset.
alcibiades | March 10, 2006 12:32 PM
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