Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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I have just finished reading a newly-published book which seems to be remarkably timely, Moataz Abdel-Fattah's Democratic Values in the Muslim World, published by the American University in Cairo Press. The book is based on a survey covering 31,380 literate Muslims in 32 Muslim countries across the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South East Asia, as well as minority Muslim communities in the US, Europe and India.

In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the book lies in five chapters, and comprises a number of tables and charts. In spite of the academic nature of the volume, it should appeal to the general reader, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

The author recognises three main schools of thought on Islam and democracy. First, the traditionalist Islamists who are divided into violent and pacifist. "All violent Islamists are traditionalists," writes Abdel-Fattah, "but not all traditionalists are violent; some of them are pacifists. They believe that democracy defies the Islamic creed." He quotes a Sudanese Imam as saying, "Islam is beautiful and complete. Attaching words such as democracy or socialism or the like to it takes away from its beauty." Modern Islamists constitute the second category. They seek a modern, democratic government that is compatible with Islam. The third category is that of the pluralistic secularists who perceive democracy as a political necessity to achieve their liberal goal.

It is important to note that both traditionalists and modernists are Islamists and have similar assumptions and doctrines regarding the role of Islam in politics. For both schools of thought, Islam is both religion and state. When encountering the slogan "political Islam", their response is that Islam cannot be anything but political.

The researcher then goes on to analyse the ideology of the three categories. The traditionalists believe that democracy is sinful because of its association with non- Muslims. To them, democracy is un-Islamic not only in origin but by association as well. It comes from the Judeo-Christian West, "with all its covetousness, lack of respect for religion, and devotion to personal liberties". He quotes Ayman Al-Zawahiri as saying that the label "Muslim democrat" is self-contradictory. Whoever "labels himself as a Muslim democrat", claims Al-Zawahiri, is like a Muslim who says he is a Jewish- Muslim or a Christian- Muslim.

Turning to the modernists' position, the author claims that this group has no reservations about borrowing notions from other societies and civilisations, if these are to the benefit of Muslims. Thus, they see no ethical or religious reason why they should not adopt democratic mechanisms "as long as they are within an Islamic context."

Secularists, unlike traditionalists and modernists, start from two different but compatible assumptions. The first is that Islam does not offer a concrete guide for governance. According to a secular Pakistani government official, "Holy texts do not tell Muslims much about how to run their societies. Holy texts are excellent sources of aqida [creed] and ethics but not politics or economics."

The other assumption is that Muslims need to follow the paths of the most successful societies in order to outdo them. This is exactly what the West did by learning from ancient Muslims and others. Then, there is a group that the author calls statist secularists. These are against "premature democracy since Muslims are not ready for it". According to them, democracy requires time and "is not necessarily an immediate task of the moment". One of them argues that "Democracy is an evolving being; it is born and grows up. It is never created at once."

This is an insightful, well-researched and intelligently argued book, that devotes equal space to all points of view on the controversial issues it tackles.