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Faith-based initiatives: Can Islam bring democracy
to the Middle East?
Ray Takeyh


THE TELEVISED footage of an airliner crashing into the World Trade Center is now the prevailing image of Islam. Media pundits decry anti-Muslim bigotry and hasten to remind the public that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, notwithstanding the actions of an extremist minority. But in the same breath many of those pundits warn of a clash of civilizations—a war that pits the secular, modernized West against a region mired in ancient hatreds and fundamentalist rage.

This simplistic choice between "Islam" and "modernity" ignores a third option that is emerging throughout the Middle East. Lost amidst the din of cultural saber-rattling are the voices calling for an Islamic reformation: A new generation of theological thinkers, led by figures such as Iranian President Muhammad Khatami and Tunisian activist Rached Ghannouchi, is reconsidering the orthodoxies of Islamic politics. In the process, such leaders are demonstrating that the region may be capable of generating a genuinely democratic order, one based on indigenous values. For the Middle East today, moderate Islam may be democracy's last hope. For the West, it might represent one of the best long-term solutions to "winning" the war against Middle East terrorism.

Militant Islam continues to tempt those on the margins of society (and guides anachronistic forces such as Afghanistan's Taliban and Palestine's Islamic Jihad), but its moment has passed. In Iran, the Grand Ayatollah's autocratic order degenerated into corruption and economic stagnation. Elsewhere, the Islamic radicals' campaign of terror — such as Gamma al-Islamiyya in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon — failed to produce any political change, as their violence could not overcome the brutality of the states they encountered. The militants' incendiary rhetoric and terrorism only triggered public revulsion, not revolutions and mass uprisings. Indeed, the Arab populace may have returned to religion over the last two decades, but they turned to a religion that was tolerant and progressive, not one that called for a violent displacement of the existing order with utopias.

Political Islam as a viable reform movement might have petered out were it not for one minor detail: The rest of the world was changing. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of democratic regimes in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia electrified the Arab populace. Their demands were simple but profound. As one Egyptian university student explained in 1993: "I want what they have in Poland, Czechoslovakia. Freedom of thought and freedom of speech." In lecture halls, street cafes, and mosques, long dormant ideas of representation, identity, authenticity and pluralism began to arise.

The task of addressing the population's demand for a pluralistic society consistent with traditional values was left to a new generation of Islamist thinkers, who have sought to legitimize democratic concepts through the reinterpretation of Islamic texts and traditions. Tunisia's Ghannouchi captures this spirit of innovation by stressing, "Islam did not come with a specific program concerning life. It is our duty to formulate this program through interaction between Islamic precepts and modernity." Under these progressive readings, the well-delineated Islamic concept of shura (consultation) compels a ruler to consider popular opinion and establishes the foundation for an accountable government. In a modern context, such consultation can be implemented through the standard tools of democracy: Elections, plebiscites, and referendums.

The Islamic notion of ijma (consensus) has been similarly accommodated to serve as a theological basis for majoritarian rule. For Muslim reformers, Prophet Mohammed's injunction that "differences of opinion within my community is a sign of God's mercy", denotes prophetic approbation of diversity of thought and freedom of speech.

The new generation of Islamists has quickly embraced the benefits wrought by modernization and globalization in order to forge links between Islamist groups and thinkers in the various states of the Middle East. Through mosques, Islamists easily distribute pamphlets, tracts and cassettes of Islamic thinkers and writers. In today's Middle East, one can easily find the Egyptian Brotherhood's magazine Al-Dawa in bookstores in the Persian Gulf while the Jordanian Islamist daily Al-Sabil, enjoys wide circulation throughout the Levant.

The advent of the Internet has intensified such cross-pollination, as most Islamist journals, lectures and conference proceedings are posted on the Web. The writings of Iranian philosopher Abdol Karim Soroush today appear in Islamic curricula across the region and Egypt's Islamist liberal Hassan Hanafi commands an important audience in Iran's seminaries. In the future, such Islamists will likely vie to succeed the region's discredited military rulers and lifetime presidents. But what will a prospective Islamic democracy look like?

Undoubtedly, Islamic democracy will differ in important ways from the model that evolved in post-Reformation Europe. Western systems elevated the primacy of the individual above the community and thus changed the role of religion from that of the public conveyor of community values to a private guide for individual conscience. In contrast, an Islamic democracy's attempt to balance its emphasis on reverence with the popular desire for self-expression will impose certain limits on individual choice.

An Islamic polity will support fundamental tenets of democracy — namely, regular elections, separation of powers, an independent judiciary and institutional opposition — but it is unlikely to be a libertarian paradise. The question of gender rights is an excellent example of the strengths — and limits — of an Islamic democracy.

The Islamists who rely on women's votes, grass-roots activism and participation in labor markets cannot remain deaf to women's demands for equality. Increasingly, Islamic reformers suggest the cause of women's failure to achieve equality is not religion but custom. The idea of black-clad women passively accepting the dictates of superior males is the province of Western caricatures. Iran's parliament, cabinet and universities are populated with women, as are the candidate lists for Islamic opposition parties in Egypt and Turkey.

But while an Islamic democracy will not impede women's integration into public affairs, it will impose restrictions on them, particularly in the realm of family law and dress codes. In such an order, women can make significant progress, yet in important ways they may still lag behind their Western counterparts.

Moderate Islamists are likely to be most liberal in the realm of economic policy. The failure of command economies in the Middle East and the centrality of global markets to the region's economic rehabilitation have made minimal government intervention appealing to Islamist theoreticians. Moreover, a privatized economy is consistent with classical Islamic economic theory and its well-established protection of market and commerce. The Islamist parties have been among the most persistent critics of state restrictions on trade and measures that obstruct opportunities for middle-class entrepreneurs.

The international implications of the emergence of Islamic democracies are also momentous. While revolutionary Islam could not easily coexist with the international system, moderate Islam can serve as a bridge between civilizations. The coming to power of moderate Islamists throughout the Middle East might lead to a lessening of tensions both within the region and between it and other parts of the world.

Today, security experts talk of the need to "drain the swamps" and deprive terrorists of the state sponsorship that provides the protection and funding to carry out their war against the West. Within a more open and democratic system, dictatorial regimes would enjoy less freedom to support terrorism or engage in military buildups without any regard for economic consequences. Ultimately, however, the integration of an Islamic democracy into global democratic society would depend on the willingness of the West to accept an Islamic variant on liberal democracy.

Islamist moderates, while conceding that there are in fact certain "universal" democratic values, maintain that different civilizations must be able to express these values in a context that is acceptable and appropriate to their particular region. Moderate Islamists, therefore, will continue to struggle against any form of US hegemony, whether in political or cultural terms and are much more comfortable with a multipolar, multi-"civilizational" international system.

Khatami's call for a "dialogue of civilizations" presupposes that there is no single universal standard judging the effectiveness of democracy and human rights. Certainly, the West should resist totalitarian states who use the rhetoric of democracy while rejecting its essence through false claims of cultural authenticity. But even though an Islamic democracy will resist certain elements of post-Enlightenment liberalism, it will still be a system that features regular elections, accepts dissent and opposition parties and condones a free press and division of power between branches of state.

As such, any fair reading of Islamic democracy will reveal that it is a genuine effort to conceive a system of government responsive to popular will. And this effort is worthy of Western acclaim.

Ray Takeyh is a Soref research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: Radical Islamic Movements in the Modern Middle East (New York: Praeger, forthcoming).

Copyright: Foreign Policy Nov-Dec 2001 (www.foreignpolicy.com)


Give Muslims democracy
Thomas L. Friedman

FOR ALL the talk about Islam and Islamic rage, the real issue is: Islam in what context? So, class. time for a news quiz: Name the second largest Muslim community in the world. Iran? Wrong. Pakistan? Wrong. Saudi Arabia? Wrong. Time's up - you lose. Answer: India.

That's right: India, with nearly 150 million Muslims, is believed to have more Muslim citizens than Pakistan or Bangladesh and is second only to Indonesia. Which brings up another question that I've been asking here in New Delhi: Why is it you don't hear about Indian Muslims - who are a minority in this vast Hindu-dominated land - blaming America for all their problems or wanting to fly suicide planes into the Indian Parliament? Answer: Multi-ethnic, pluralistic, free-market democracy.

To be sure, Indian Muslims have their frustrations and have squared off over the years in violent clashes with Hindus, as has every other minoritv in India. But they live in a noisy, messy democracy, where opportunities and a political voice are open to them and that makes a huge difference.

"I'll give you a quiz question: Which is the only large Muslim community to enjoy sustained democracy for the last 50 years? The Muslims of India," remarked M.J. Akhar, the Muslim editor of The Asian Age, a national Indian English-language daily funded by non-Muslim Indians. "I am not going to exaggerate Muslim good fortune in India. There are tensions. Economic discrimination and provocations, like the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya. But the fact is, the Indian Constitution is secular and provides a real opportunity for the economic advancement of any community that can offer talent. That's why a growing Muslim middle class here is moving up and generally, doesn't manifest the strands of deep anger you find in many non-democratic Muslim states."

In other words, for all the talk about Islam and Islamic rage, the real issue is: Islam in what context? Where Islam is imbedded in authoritarian societies it tends to become the vehicle of angry protest because religion and the mosque are the only places people can organise against autocratic leaders. And when those leaden are seen as being propped up by America, America also becomes the target of Muslim rage. But where Islam is imbedded in a pluralistic, Democratic society, it thrives like any other religion.

Two of India's presidents have been Muslims: A Muslim woman sits on India's Supreme Court. The architect of India's missile program A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is a Muslim. Indian Muslims, including women. have been governors of many Indian states and the wealthiest man in India, the info-tech whiz Azim Premji, is a Muslim. The Indian Muslim filmstar and parliamentarian Shabana Azmi lashed out at the Imam of New Delhi's biggest mosque. She criticised him for putting Islam in a bad light and suggested he go join the Taliban in Kandahar. In a democracy, liberal Muslims, particularly women, are not afraid to take on rigid mullahs.

Followed Bangladesh lately? It has almost as many Muslims as Pakistan. Over the last 10 years though, without the world noticing, Bangladesh has had three democratic transfers of power, in two of which - are you ready? - Muslim women were elected prime ministers. Result: All the economic and social indicators in Bangladesh have been pointing upward lately and Bangladeshis are not preoccupied hating America.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, trapped in the circle of Bin Ladenism - military dictatorship, poverty and anti-modernist Islamic schools all reinforcing each other - the social indicators are all pointing down and hostility to America is rife.

Hello? Hello? There's a message here: It's democracy, stupid! Those who argue that we needn't press for democracy in Arab-Muslim states and can rely on repressive regimes. have it all wrong. If we cut off every other avenue for non-revolutionary social change, pressure for change will burst out anyway -as Muslim rage and anti-Americanism.

If America wants to break the Bin Laden circles across the Arab-Muslim world, then, "it needs to find role models that are succeeding as pluralistic, democratic. modernising societies, like India -- which is constantly being challenged by religious extremists of all hues -- and support them," argues Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper.

So true. For Muslim societies to achieve their full potential today, democracy may not be sufficient, but it sure is necessary. And we, and they fool ourselves to think otherwise.

Copyright: The Asian Age

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