"Can There Be an Islamic Democracy?"

Can There Be an Islamic Democracy?
Review Essay

by David Bukay
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2007
http://www.meforum.org/article/1680

Are Islam and democracy compatible? A large literature has developed
arguing that Islam has all the ingredients of modern state and society.
Many Muslim intellectuals seek to prove that Islam enshrines democratic
values. But rather than lead the debate, they often follow it, peppering
their own analyses with references to Western scholars who, casting aside
traditional Orientalism for the theories of the late literary theorist and
polemicist Edward Said, twist evidence to fit their theories. Why such
efforts? For Western scholars, the answer lies both in politics and the
often lucrative desire to please a wider Middle East audience. For
Islamists, though, the motivation is to remove suspicion about the nature
and goals of Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and,
perhaps, even Hezbollah.

Western Apologia

Some Western researchers support the Islamist claim that parliamentary
democracy and representative elections are not only compatible with
Islamic law, but that Islam actually encourages democracy. They do this
in one of two ways: either they twist definitions to make them fit the
apparatuses of Islamic government—terms such as democracy become
relative—or they bend the reality of life in Muslim countries to fit
their theories.

Among the best known advocates of the idea that Islam both is compatible
and encourages democracy is John L. Esposito, founding director of the
Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at
Georgetown University and the author or editor of more than thirty books
about Islam and Islamist movements. Esposito and his various co-authors
build their arguments upon tendentious assumptions and platitudes such as
"democracy has many and varied meanings;"[1] "every culture will mold an
independent model of democratic government;"[2] and "there can develop a
religious democracy."[3]

He argues that "Islamic movements have internalized the democratic
discourse through the concepts of shura [consultation], ijma'
[consensus], and ijtihad [independent interpretive judgment]"[4] and
concludes that democracy already exists in the Muslim world, "whether the
word democracy is used or not."[5]

If Esposito's arguments are true, then why is democracy not readily
apparent in the Middle East? Freedom House regularly ranks Arab countries
as among the least democratic anywhere.[6] Esposito adopts Said's belief
that Western scholarship and standards are inherently biased and
lambastes both scholars who pass such judgments without experience with
Islamic movements[7] and those who have a "secular bias" toward Islam.[8]

For example, in Islam and Democracy,[9] Esposito and co-author John Voll,
associate director of the Prince Alwaleed Center, question Western
attempts to monopolize the definition of democracy and suggest the very
concept shifts meanings over time and place. They argue that every
culture can mold an independent model of democratic government, which may
or may not correlate to the Western liberal idea.[10]

Only after eviscerating the meaning of democracy as the concept developed
and derived from Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece through Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison in eighteenth century America, can Esposito
and his fellow travelers advance theories of the compatibility of
Islamism and democracy.

While Esposito's arguments may be popular within the Middle East Studies
Association, democracy theorists tend to dismiss such relativism. Larry
Diamond, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, and Leonardo Morlino, a
specialist in comparative politics at the University of Florence, ascribe
seven features to any democracy: individual freedoms and civil liberties;
rule of the law; sovereignty resting upon the people; equality of all
citizens before the law; vertical and horizontal accountability for
government officials; transparency of the ruling systems to the demands
of the citizens; and equality of opportunity for citizens.[11] This
approach is important, since it emphasizes civil liberties, human rights
and freedoms, instead of over-reliance on elections and the formal
institutions of the state.[12]

Esposito ignores this basic foundation of democracy and instead draws
inspiration from men such as Indian philosopher Muhammad Iqbal
(1877-1938), Sudanese religious leader Hasan al-Turabi (1932-), Iranian
sociologist Ali Shariati (1933-77), and former Iranian president Muhammad
Khatami (1943-), who argue that Islam provides a framework for combining
democracy with spirituality to remedy the alleged spiritual vacuum in
Western democracies.[13] They endorse Khatami's view that democracies
need not follow a formula and can function not only in a liberal system
but also in socialist or religious systems; they adopt the important
twentieth century Indian (and, later, Pakistani) exegete Abu al-A'la
al-Mawdudi's concept of a "theo-democracy,"[14] in which three
principles: tawhid (unity of God), risala (prophethood) and khilafa
(caliphate) underlie the Islamic political system.[15]

But Mawdudi argues that any Islamic polity has to accept the supremacy of
Islamic law over all aspects of political and religious life[16]—hardly a
democratic concept, given that Islamic law does not provide for equality
of all citizens under the law regardless of religion and gender. Such a
formulation also denies citizens a basic right to decide their laws, a
fundamental concept of democracy. Although he uses the phrase
theo-democracy to suggest that Islam encompassed some democratic
principles, Mawdudi himself asserted Islamic democracy to be a
self-contradiction: the sovereignty of God and sovereignty of the people
are mutually exclusive. An Islamic democracy would be the antithesis of
secular Western democracy.[17]

Esposito and Voll respond by saying that Mawdudi and his contemporaries
did not so much reject democracy as frame it under the concept of God's
unity. Theo-democracy need not mean a dictatorship of state, they argue,
but rather could include joint sovereignty by all Muslims, including
ordinary citizens.[18] Esposito goes even further, arguing that Mawdudi's
Islamist system could be democratic even if it eschews popular
sovereignty, so long as it permits consultative assemblies subordinate to
Islamic law.[19]

While Esposito and Voll argue that Islamic democracy rests upon concepts
of consultation (shura), consensus (ijma'), and independent interpretive
judgment (ijtihad), other Muslim exegetes add hakmiya (sovereignty).[20]
To support such a conception of Islamic democracy, Esposito and Voll rely
on Muhammad Hamidullah (1908-2002), an Indian Sufi scholar of Islam and
international law; Ayatollah Baqir as-Sadr (1935-80), an Iraqi Shi'ite
cleric; Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), an Indian Muslim poet, philosopher
and politician; Khurshid Ahmad, a vice president of the Jama'at-e-Islami
of Pakistan; and Taha al-Alwani, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic
jurisprudence.[21] The inclusion of Alwani underscores the fallacy of
Esposito's theories. In 2003, the FBI identified Alwani as an unindicted
co-conspirator in a trial of suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders
and financiers.[22]

Just as Esposito eviscerates the meaning of democracy to enable his
thesis, so, too, does he twist Islamic concepts. Shura is an advisory
council, not a participatory one. It is a legacy of tribalism, not
sovereignty.[23] Nor does ijma' express the consensus of the community at
large but rather only the elders and established leaders.[24] As for
independent judgment, many Sunni scholars deem ijtihad closed in the
eleventh century.[25]

Amplifying Esposito

Esposito's arguments have not only permeated the Middle Eastern studies
academic community but also gained traction with public intellectuals
through books written by journalists and policy practitioners.

In both journal articles and book length works as well as in underlying
assumptions within her reporting, former Los Angeles Times and current
Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Robin Wright argues that
Islamism could transform into more democratic forms. In 2000, for
example, she argued in The Last Great Revolution that a profound
transformation was underway in Iran in which pragmatism replaced
revolutionary values, arrogance had given way to realism, and the
"government of God" was ceding to secular statecraft.[26] Far from
becoming more democratic, though, the supreme leader and Revolutionary
Guards consolidated control; freedoms remain elusive, political prisoners
incarcerated, and democracy imaginary.

Underlying Wright's work is the idea that neither Islam nor Muslim culture
is a major obstacle to political modernity. She accepts both the Esposito
school's arguments that shura, ijma', and ijtihad form a basis on which
to make Islam compatible with political pluralism.[27] She shares John
Voll's belief that Islam is an integral part of the modern world,[28] and
she says the central drama of reform is the attempt to reconcile Islam and
modernity by creating a worldview compatible with both.[29]

In her article "Islam and Liberal Democracy," she profiles two prominent
Islamist thinkers, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the exiled leader of Tunisia's
Hizb al-Nahda (Renaissance Party), and Iranian philosopher and analytical
chemist Abdul-Karim Soroush. While she argues that their ideas represent a
realistic confluence of Islam and democracy,[30] she neither defines
democracy nor treats her cases studies with a dispassionate eye.
Ghannouchi uses democratic terms without accepting them let alone
understanding their meaning. He remains not a modernist but an
unapologetic Islamist.

Wright ignores that Soroush led the purge of liberal intellectuals from
Iranian universities in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.[31] While
Soroush spoke of civil rights and tolerance, he applied such privileges
only to those subscribing to Islamic democracy.[32] He also argued that
although Islam means "submission," there is no contradiction to the
freedoms inherent in democracy. Islam and democracy are not only
compatible but their association inevitable. In a Muslim society, one
without the other is imperfect. He argues that the will of the majority
shapes the ideal Islamic state.[33] But, in practice, this does not
occur. As in Iran, many Islamists constrain democratic processes and
crush civil society. Those with guns, not numbers, shape the state. Among
Arab-Islamic states, there are only authoritarian regimes and patrimonial
leadership; the jury is still out on whether Iraq can be a stable
exception. Soroush, however, contradicts himself: Although Islam should
be an!
open
religion, it must retain its essence. His argument that Islamic law is
expandable would be considered blasphemous by many contemporaries who
argue that certain principles within Islamic law are immutable. Upon
falling out of favor with revolutionary authorities in Iran, he fled to
the West. Sometimes, academics only face the fallacy of what sounds
plausible in the ivy tower when events force them to face reality.

What Ghannouchi and Soroush have in common, and what remains true with any
number of other Islamist officials, is that, regardless of rhetoric, they
do not wish to reconcile Islam and modernity but to change the political
order. It is easier to adopt the rhetoric of democracy than its
principles.

While time has proven Wright wrong, the persistence of Esposito exegetes
remains. Every few years, a new face emerges to revive old arguments. The
most recent addition is Noah Feldman, a frequent media commentator and
Arabic-speaking law professor at Harvard University. In 2003, Feldman
published After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy,
which explores the prospects for democracy in the Islamic world.[34] His
thesis rehashes Esposito's 1992 book The Islamic Threat: Myth or
Reality?[35] and the 1996 Esposito-Voll collaboration Islam and
Democracy.[36] Even after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Feldman argues that
the age of violent jihad is past, and Islamism is evolving in new, more
peaceful, and democratic directions.[37] Included in Feldman's list of
Islamic democrats[38] is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Islamist theoretician who
has endorsed suicide bombing and the murder of homosexuals.[39]

While most academic debates do not exit the classroom, the debate over the
compatibility of Islam and democracy affects policy. Feldman pushes the
conclusion that the Islamist threat is illusionary. Accordingly, he
argues that Islamist movements should have a chance to govern.[40]
Feldman concludes with the prescription that U.S. policymakers should
adopt an inclusive attitude toward political Islam. "An established
religion that does not coerce religious belief and that treats religious
minorities as equals may be perfectly compatible with democracy," he
explained in a September 2003 interview.[41]

Shireen Hunter, a former Iranian diplomat who now directs the Islam
program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also
repackages Esposito's general arguments in her book, The Future of Islam
and the West: Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence?,[42] and,
more recently, in Modernization, Democracy, and Islam,[43] her edited
collection with Huma Malik, the assistant director of Esposito's Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at
Georgetown University. Both books deny the Islamist threat and try to
reconcile Islamic teachings with Western values. She seeks to counter
Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilization[44] and gives an assessment of
the relative role of both conflictual and cooperate factors of
Muslim-Western relations. She argues that the fusion of the spiritual and
the temporal in Islam is no greater than in other religions. Therefore,
the slower pace of democratization in Muslim countries cannot be
attributed to I!
slam
itself. Although Hunter acknowledges that Muslim countries have a poor
record of modernization and democracy, she blames external factors such
as colonialism and the international economic system.[45]

Other scholars take obsequiousness to new levels. Anna Jordan, who gives
no information about her expertise but is widely published on Islamist
Internet sites, argues[46] that the Qur'an supports the principles of
Western democracy as they are defined by William Ebenstein and Edwin
Fogelman, two professors of political science who focus on the ideas and
ideologies that define democracy.[47] By utilizing various Qur'anic
verses,[48] Jordan finds that the Islamic holy book supports rational
empiricism and individual rights, rejects the state as the ultimate
authority, promotes the freedom to associate with any religious group,
accepts the idea that the state is subordinate to law, and accepts due
process and basic equality.

Most of her citations, though, do not support her conclusions and, in some
cases, suggest the opposite. Rather than support the idea of "rational
empiricism," for example, Sura 17:36 mandates complete submission to the
authority of God. Other citations are irrelevant in context and substance
to her arguments. Her assertion that the Qur'an assures the "basic
equality of all human beings" rests upon verses commanding equality among
Muslims and Muslims only, plus a verse warning against schisms among
Muslims.

Gudrun Kramer, chair of the Institute of Islamic Studies at the Free
University in Berlin, also accepts the Esposito thesis. She writes that
the central stream in Islam "has come to accept crucial elements of
political democracy: pluralism, political participation, governmental
accountability, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights." In
her opinion, the Muslim approach to human rights and freedom is more
advanced than many Westerners acknowledge.[49]

Islamist Rejection of Esposito's Theory

Ironically, while Western scholars perform intellectual somersaults to
demonstrate the compatibility of Islam and democracy, prominent Muslim
scholars argue democracy to be incompatible with their religion. They
base their conclusion on two foundations: first, the conviction that
Islamic law regulates the believer's activities in every area of life,
and second, that the Muslim society of believers will attain all its
goals only if the believers walk in the path of God.[50] In addition,
some Muslim scholars further reject anything that does not have its
origins in the Qur'an.[51]

Hasan al-Banna (1906-49), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood,[52]
sought to purge Western influences. He taught that Islam was the only
solution and that democracy amounted to infidelity to Islam.[53] Sayyid
Qutb (1906-66), the leading theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood,
objected to the idea of popular sovereignty altogether. He believed that
the Islamic state must be based upon the Qur'an, which he argued provided
a complete and moral system in need of no further legislation.[54]
Consultation—in the traditional Islamic sense rather than in the manner
of Esposito's extrapolations—was sufficient.

Mawdudi, while used by Esposito, argued that Islam was the antithesis of
any secular Western democracy that based sovereignty upon the people[55]
and rejected the basics of Western democracy.[56] More recent Islamists
such as Qaradawi argue that democracy must be subordinate to the
acceptance of God as the basis of sovereignty. Democratic elections are
therefore heresy, and since religion makes law, there is no need for
legislative bodies.[57] Outlining his plans to establish an Islamic state
in Indonesia, Abu Bakar Bashir, a Muslim cleric and the leader of the
Indonesian Mujahideen Council, attacked democracy and the West and called
on Muslims to wage jihad against the ruling regimes in the Muslim world.
"It is not democracy that we want, but Allah-cracy," he explained.[58]

Nor does acceptance of basic Western structures imply democracy. Under
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic adopted both a
constitution and a parliament, but their existence did not make Iran more
democratic. Indeed, Khomeini continued to wield supreme power and formed a
number of bodies—the revolutionary foundations, for example—which remained
above constitutional law.

Is Islamic Democracy Possible?

The Islamic world is not ready to absorb the basic values of modernism and
democracy. Leadership remains the prerogative of the ruling elite. Arab
and Islamic leadership are patrimonial, coercive, and authoritarian. Such
basic principles as sovereignty, legitimacy, political participation and
pluralism, and those individual rights and freedoms inherent in democracy
do not exist in a system where Islam is the ultimate source of law.

The failure of democracies to take hold in Gaza and Iraq justify both the
1984 declaration by Samuel P. Huntington and the argument a decade later
by Gilles Kepel, a prominent French scholar and analyst of radical Islam,
that Islamic cultural traditions may prevent democratic development.[59]

Emeritus Princeton historian Bernard Lewis is also correct in explaining
that the term democracy is often misused. It has turned up in surprising
places—the Spain of General Franco, the Greece of the colonels, the
Pakistan of the generals, the Eastern Europe of the commissars—usually
prefaced by some qualifying adjective such as "guided," "basic,"
"organic," "popular," or the like, which serves to dilute, deflect, or
even reverse the meaning of the word.[60]

Islam may be compatible with democracy, but it depends on what is
understood as Islam. This is not universally agreed on and is based on a
hope, not on reality. Both Turkey and the West African country of Mali
are democracies even though the vast majority of their citizens are
Muslim. But, the political Islam espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and
other Islamists is incompatible with liberal democracy.

Furthermore, if language has an impact on thinking, then the Middle East
will achieve democracy only slowly, if at all. In traditional Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish, there is no word for "citizen." Rather, older texts
use cognates— in Arabic, muwatin; in Turkish, vatandaslik; in Persian,
sharunad— respectively, closer in meaning to the English "compatriot" or
"countryman." The Arabic and Turkish come from watan, meaning "country."
Muwatin, is a neologism and while it suggests progress, the Western
concept of freedom—understood as the ability to participate in the
formation, conduct, and lawful removal and replacement of
government—remains alien in much of the region.

Islamists themselves regard liberal democracy with contempt. They are
willing to accommodate it as an avenue to power but as an avenue that
runs only one way.[61] Hisham Sharabi (1927-2005), the influential
Palestinian scholar and political activist, has said that Islamic
fundamentalism expresses mass sentiment and belief as no nationalist or
socialist (and we may add democratic) ideology has been able to do up
until now.[62]

Conclusion

Why then are so many Western scholars keen to show the compatibility
between Islamism and democracy? The popularity of post-colonialism and
post-modernism within the academy inclines intellectuals to accommodate
Islamism. Political correctness inhibits many from addressing the
negative phenomenon in foreign cultures. It is considered laudable to
prove the compatibility of Islam and democracy; it is labeled
"Islamophobic" or racist to suggest incompatibility or to differentiate
between positive and negative interpretations of Islam.

Many policymakers are also conflict-adverse. Islamists exploit the Western
cultural desire to accommodate while Western thinkers and policymakers
attempt to ameliorate differences by seeking to find common ground in
definitions if not reality.

Into the mix comes Islamist propaganda, portraying Islam as peace-loving,
embracing of civil rights and, even in its less tolerant forms,
compatible with all democratic values. The problem is that the free world
ignores the possibility that political Islam can threaten democracy not
only in Middle Eastern societies but also in the West. The legitimization
of political Islam has lent democratic respectability to an ideology and
political system at odds with the basic tenets of democracy.

Esposito's statement that "the United States must restrain its
one-dimensional attitude to democracy and recognize [that] the authentic
roots of democracy exist in Islam"[63] shows a basic ignorance of both
democracy and Islamist teachings. These conclusions are exacerbated when
Esposito places blame for the aggressiveness and terrorism of Islamic
fundamentalism on the West and on Said's "Orientalists." It is one thing
to be wrong in the classroom, but it can be far more dangerous when such
wrong-headed theories begin to affect policy.

David Bukay is a lecturer in the school of political science at the
University of Haifa.

[1] John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992), pp. 211-2; John O. Voll and John L. Esposito,
Islam and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 18-21.
[2] Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 211-2; Voll and Esposito, Islam and
Democracy, pp. 18-21.
[3] Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 211-2; Voll and Esposito, Islam and
Democracy, pp. 18-21; John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, "Islam and
Democracy," Humanities, Nov./Dec. 2001.
[4] John L. Esposito and James Piscatory, "Democratization and Islam,"
Middle East Journal, Summer 1991, p. 434; John O. Voll and John L.
Esposito "Islam's Democratic Essence," Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1994,
pp. 7-8; Voll and Esposito, Islam and Democracy, pp. 27-30, 186; Esposito
and Voll, "Islam and Democracy"; Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 49-50;
John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991), pp. 45, 83, 142-8.
[5] John L. Esposito, What Everybody Needs to Know about Islam (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 159-61; John L. Esposito,
"Contemporary Islam," in John L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of
Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 675-80; Esposito and
Piscatory, "Democratization and Islam," p. 440.
[6] "Table of Independent Countries 2006," Freedom in the World, 2006
(Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2006).
[7] Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 203-4.
[8] John L. Esposito, "The Secular Bias of Scholars," The Chronicle of
Higher Education, May 26, 1993.
[9] New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
[10] Voll and Esposito, Islam and Democracy, pp. 6-8, 27-30.
[11] Larry Diamond, et. al., eds., Democracy in Developing Countries
(London: Adamantine Press, 1988), pp. 218-60; Larry Diamond and Leonardo
Morlino, "The Quality of Democracy," Journal of Democracy, Oct. 2004;
Robert A. Dahl, Ian Shapiro, and Jose Antonio Cheibub, eds., The
Democracy Sourcebook (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003).
[12] See Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1998).
[13] Esposito, The Oxford History of Islam, pp. 661-7; Esposito, Islam:
The Straight Path, pp. 137, 141, 181-3, 231, 245-6; Esposito and
Piscatory, "Democratization and Islam," pp. 436-7.
[14] Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, "Political Theory of Islam," in Khurshid
Ahmad, ed., Islam: Its Meaning and Message (London: Islamic Council of
Europe, 1976), pp. 159-61.
[15] Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, Islamic Way of Life (Delhi: Markazi Maktaba
Islami, 1967), p. 40; Esposito and Piscatory, "Democratization and
Islam," pp. 436-7, 440; Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 125-6; Voll and
Esposito, Islam and Democracy, pp. 23-6.
[16] Muhammad Yusuf, Maududi: A Formative Phase (Karachi: the Universal
Message, 1979), p. 35.
[17] Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, "Political Theory of Islam," in John J.
Donahue and John L. Esposito, eds., Islam in Transition: Muslim
Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 253.
[18] Voll and Esposito, "Islam's Democratic Essence," p. 7.
[19] Esposito, The Islamic Threat, p. 126.
[20] Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiyah, "Mas'alah fil-'Aql wal-Nafs," in A.A.M.
Qasim and M.A.A. Qasim, eds., Majmu'a fatawat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn
Taymiyah (Riyyad: Matba'at al-Hukumah, 1996), vol. 9, pp. 47-9; Abu
al-A'la al-Mawdudi, "Political Theory of Islam," in Ahmad, Islam, pp.
149-51; Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Ma'alim fil Tariq) (Indianapolis:
American Trust Publications, 1990), pp. 111-3, 130-7.
[21] Voll and Esposito, Islam and Democracy, pp. 27-30, 186; Esposito, The
Islamic Threat, pp. 49-50; Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, pp. 45, 83;
Esposito and Piscatory, "Democratization and Islam," p. 434.
[22] See, for example, J. Michael Waller, Annenberg Professor of
International Communication, Institute of World Politics, statement
before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security,
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Oct. 14, 2003.
[23] Clifford Edmond Boseworth, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1960), vol. 9, s.v. "shura."
[24] M. Bernard, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960),
vol. 3, s.v. "idjma."
[25] Joseph Schacht, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960),
vol. 3, s.v. "idjtihad."
[26] Robin B. Wright, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and
Transformation in Iran (London: Vintage, 2001), pp. 256-73, 292-9.
[27] Robin B. Wright, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: Two Visions of
Reformation," Journal of Democracy, Apr. 1996, pp. 65-7.
[28] John Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in Modern World (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1994), pp. 378-87.
[29] Wright, "Islam and Liberal Democracy," p. 67.
[30] Ibid., pp. 67-75.
[31] "Soroush among Those For and Against," interview, Jameah (Tehran),
June 16, 17, 1998; John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Makers of
Contemporary Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 7.
[32] Abdol Karim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam:
Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 123-55.
[33] Ibid., pp. 245, 247.
[34] New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003.
[35] Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[36] New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
[37] Feldman, After Jihad, pp. 222-7; "'Islamic Democracy' in a New Iraq:
An Interview with Noah Feldman," Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service,
Sept. 30, 2003.
[38] Feldman, After Jihad, p. 182.
[39] "The Qaradawi Fatwas," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2004, pp. 78-80.
[40] Feldman, After Jihad, pp. 210-21, 228-30, 234.
[41] "'Islamic Democracy' in a New Iraq: An Interview with Noah Feldman."
[42] New York: Praeger, 1998.
[43] New York: Praeger, 2005.
[44] Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
[45] Hunter, The Future of Islam and the West, pp. 19-28, 106-14.
[46] Anna Jordan, "The Principles of Western Democracy and Islam,"
Submissions.org, Dec.1998, accessed Nov. 17, 2006.
[47] William Ebenstein and Edwin Fogelman, Today's Isms: Communism,
Fascism, Capitalism (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980),
pp. 170-8.
[48] Qur'an 2:190-3; 2:215; 2:272; 3:26; 3:159; 3:195; 4:49-50; 4:52-3;
4:73; 4:71; 4:76; 4:100; 4:135; 9:20; 9:120; 10:98-9; 17:36; 17:53;
25:55; 31:18-9; 38:22-4; 38:26; 42:38; 45:18; 49:11-3.
[49] Gudrun Kramer, "Islamic Notions of Democracy," Middle East Report,
July-August 1993.
[50] Faris Jedaane, "Notions of the State in Contemporary Arab Political
Writings," in G. Luciani, ed., The Arab State (London: Routledge, 1990),
pp. 247-83; Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1982), pp. 69-139.
[51] Ahmad, Islam: Its Meaning and Message, pp. 159-61.
[52] Richard Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 209-94.
[53] Hasan al-Banna, Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna (Berkeley: California
University Press, 1978), pp. 142-54.
[54] Sayyid Qutb, Ma'alim 'alal-Tariq (Karachi: International Islamic
publishers, 1988), pp. 73-8, 80-1, 112; Sayed Khatab, The Political
Thought of Sayyid Qutb: The Theory of Jahiliyah (London: Routledge,
2006).
[55] Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, Political Theory of Islam (Lahore: Islamic
Publications, 1976), pp. 13, 15-7, 38, 75-82.
[56] Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, "Suicide of Western Civilization," in Wakar
Ahmad Gardezi and Abdul Wahid Khan, eds., West versus Islam (New Delhi:
International Islamic Publishers, 1992), pp. 61-73.
[57] Geneive Abdo, No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 107-36.
[58] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch
Series, no. 1285, Sept. 8, 2006.
[59] Samuel P. Huntington, "Will More Countries Become Democratic?"
Political Science Quarterly, Summer 1984, p. 214; Gilles Kepel, The
Revenge of God (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1994), p. 194.
[60] Bernard Lewis, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: A Historical Overview,"
Journal of Democracy, Apr. 1996, p. 52.
[61] Ibid., pp. 53-7.
[62] Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab
Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 136.
[63] Esposito and Voll, Islam and Democracy, p. 31.

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