[3][4][5] Muslim democrats, including Ahmad Moussalli (professor of political science at the American University of Beirut), argue that concepts in the Quran point towards some form of democracy, or at least away from despotism.
Moussalli argues that despotic Islamic governments have abused the Quranic concepts for their own ends: "For instance, shura, a doctrine that demands the participation of society in running the affairs of its government, became in reality a doctrine that was manipulated by political and religious elites to secure their economic, social and political interests at the expense of other segments of society," (In Progressive Muslims 2003).
Sharia rulings were established as authoritative based on the ijma (consensus) of legal scholars, who theoretically acted as representatives of the Ummah (Muslim community).
[12][13][14] For example, after the election of Mohamed Morsi, the Saudi authorities used their Salafi proxies in Egypt to counter the Muslim brotherhood, proclaim that democracy is shirk, and promoted terrorist attacks in the Sinai against the Egyptian military.
[15] The violence and destabilization caused by radical Salafi jihadist groups in the Sinai led to the ousting of Morsi and overthrow of democracy in Egypt.
Over the decades, different Salafi groups around the world have changed and evolved, from initial quietism to fully embracing political engagement to promote their ideology.
[24] Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet, instead of the philosopher king envisaged by Plato.
In the absence of the prophet, Al-Farabi considered democracy as the closest to the ideal state, regarding the republican order of the Rashidun Caliphate as an example within early Muslim history.
[25] Muslih and Browers identify three major perspectives on democracy among prominent Muslims thinkers who have sought to develop modern, distinctly Islamic theories of socio-political organization conforming to Islamic values and law:[1] In the modern history of the Muslim world, the notion of secularism has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with foreign colonial domination and the removal of religious values from the public sphere.
Traditional Islamic theory distinguishes between matters of religion (din) and state (dawla), but insists that political authority and public life must be guided by religious values.
On the other hand, Islam makes it incumbent upon Muslims to subordinate their decisions to the guidance of the Divine Law revealed in the Qur'ãn and exemplified by the Prophet: an obligation which imposes definite limits on the community's right to legislate and denies to the 'will of the people' that attribute of sovereignty which forms so integral a part of the Western concept of democracy.
[1][30] Maududi's vision has been criticized (by Youssef M. Choueiri) as an ideological state in which legislators do not legislate, citizens only vote to reaffirm the permanent applicability of God's laws, women rarely venture outside their homes lest social discipline be disrupted, and non-Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements required to express their loyalty by means of paying a financial levy.
[33] Religious scholar, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi interprets the Quranic verses as ''The collective affairs of Muslims are run on the basis of mutual consultations'' (42:37).
[36] Following the Arab Spring, professor Olivier Roy of the European University Institute, in an article in Foreign Policy, described political Islam as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy, such that "neither can now survive without the other".
They argue that compatibility is simply nonexistent between secular democracy and Arab-Islamic culture in the Middle East, which has a strong history of undemocratic beliefs and authoritarian power structures.
[38] Elie Kedourie, a well-known Orientalist scholar, said, for example: "to hold simultaneously ideas which are not easily reconcilable argues, then, a deep confusion in the Arab public mind, at least about the meaning of democracy.
"[39] A view similar to this that understands Islam and democracy to be incompatible because of seemingly irreconcilable differences between Sharia and democratic ideals is also held by some Islamists.
"[41] Writing for The Guardian,[42] Brian Whitaker, the paper's Middle East editor, argued that there were four major obstacles to democracy in the region: "the imperial legacy", "oil wealth", "the Arab–Israeli conflict", and "'militant' Islam".
Furthermore, Western governments require a stable source of oil and are therefore more prone to maintain the status quo rather than push for reforms, which may lead to periods of instability.
For example, in March 2004, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's leading Shia cleric, is reported as saying, "We have emergency laws, we have control by the security agencies, we have stagnation of opposition parties, we have the appropriation of political rights – all this in the name of the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Khaled Abou El Fadl, a lecturer in Islamic law at the University of California, comments, "modernity, despite its much scientific advancement, reached Muslims packaged in the ugliness of disempowerment and alienation."
[80] It proclaimed: Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He has delegated it to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.
[83] However, Islamisation has proceeded slowly in Pakistan, and Islamists, Islamic parties, and activists have expressed frustration that sharia law has not yet been fully implemented.
"[85] Sukarno's conception of Pancasila is not secular in the Western sense, but he agreed with Mahmud Esad Bay and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's view that Islam should be free of government control.
According to Yudi Latief, Indonesia's founding leaders, though thoroughly educated and motivated as secularists of the time, were unable to comprehend an Indonesian society without religion.
[91] Neither man considered themselves to be secularist and preferred to use 'secularisation', acknowledging the concern that secularism as an ideology could become a new closed world view functioning like a new religion.
The democratic reforms led to calls for the adoption of Islamic sharia law in the form of the Jakarta Charter in national legislative body (MPR) in 2002.
Khomeini argued that in the absence of the Hidden Imam and other divinely-appointed figures (in whom ultimate political authority rests), Muslims have not only the right, but also the obligation to establish an "Islamic state".
The last point was made in December 1987, when Khomieni issued a fatwa in support of the Islamic government's attempt to pass a labor protection bill not in accordance with sharia.
(Mohaghegh, Behnam 2014) A number of deviations from traditional sharia regulations have been noted in Iran ... the financial system has barely been Islamized; Christians, for example, are not subject to a poll tax and pay according to the common scheme.