Democracy, being a well-known system of government run by elected members of parliament, has been recognized by the most powerful countries as being one of the most liberating methods of overseeing a country. This system is said to comprise social, cultural, racial, and religious equality, leading to a free and impartial form of government. While conveying the message of equality in terms of all religious backgrounds, various individuals still believe that Islam cannot be compatible with democracy. Many people believe that the religious element subdues the governmental approach that democracy addresses, however this type of thinking is incorrect. Islam preaches various elements that are quite similar to the platform from which democracy has developed, and to support this claim, Irfan Ahmad and Bernard Lewis have written about this argument encompassing ideas of great importance.
In the texts, A Historical Overview written by Bernard Lewis, and Democracy and Islam by Irfan Ahmad, both authors discuss the debate of whether Islam and democracy are compatible. This topic is worth investigating for multiple reasons, one of which is that the world’s population constitutes a large percentage of Muslims who now affect major political affairs on a global scale. By analyzing both articles, a conclusion can then be derived to answer this provocative question.
By exploring various subtopics presented in each article, the compatibility paradigm can be justified. In doing so, I will address the democratic and Islamic conceptual overlap, the difference in matters of perspective with regards to philosophy, and democracy as seen in the world today, specifically, how it continues to impact the Muslim community. While both articles exhibit the com...
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...ocracy are compatible with each other. Both Ahmad and Lewis emphasize the endless possibilities awaiting the Muslims if they were to adopt this system of government. If the Muslims of this generation are able to accept the true, fair nature of democracy, then many of the Islamic countries facing destruction, poverty, crime, and fraud can resurface with a new identity. However, one must keep in mind that a system of government is never stable or trustworthy until the people running that system are. If this can be done in an impartial manner, then the Islamic and democratic parts of the world can unite for the betterment of both individual countries and the world as a whole.
Works Cited
1. Ahmad, Irfan. "Democracy and Islam." Philosophy & Social Criticism 37.4 (2011): 459-70.
2. Lewis, Bernard. "A Historical Overview. " Journal of Democracy 7.2 (1996): 52-63.
DPT is not only a fallacy, but it does not even begin to understand and contain modern day terrorism. Democratic Peace Theory sounds brilliant on paper, but when closely inspected, its deceptive nature and apparent simplicity becomes evident. One issue that currently divides many experts is the question of defining democracy and liberalism. Furthermore, there is no concise understanding of liberalism and democracy. Democratic peace theory fails to account for human behavior and perception. This is especially crucial when understanding terrorism at its core. This essay proposes certain systemic flaws in Democratic Peace Theory, such as Rosato states, “Democracies do not generally fight other democracies is a false premise; Democracies do not disseminate their norms of domestic politics and conflict resolution, and consequentially the do not respect each other when t...
Ayoob, M. (2007) The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim
Burns, Thomas J. "Islam." Religion and Society. OU Campus' Dale Hall, Norman. 14 Apr. 2014. Lecture.
The Islamic tradition, as reflected in Naguib Mahfouz’s Zaabalawi, has over the course of history had an incredible impact on Arab culture. In Mahfouz’s time, Islamic practices combined with their political relevance proved a source of both great power and woe in Middle Eastern countries. As alluded to in Zaabalawi, Mahfouz asserts the fact that not all Muslims attain religious fulfillment through this common tradition, and other methods outside the scope of Islam may be necessary in true spiritual understanding.
There is a strong belief that Islam and politics are directly tied. They are tied in the sense that the building blocks of the religion dictate how they ought to behave in the political environment. Through this mandatory follow up behavior that the religion delineates, many have come to believe that its teachings are a form of terrorism. Mandaville argues that what has challenged the Islamic link between politics and religion was the emergence of secularism, which went against the belief that politics and religion could go together. Islam has been a religion that has been accused of supporting terrorist activities in the world. Different assumptions have been brought up to understand better the linkages between what really lies behind the Islam religion and politics. Peter Mandaville argues that Islam is dynamic and that it has changed over time; situated within time and politics.
Thomas W. Lippman gives an introduction to the Muslim world in the book Understanding Islam. He has traveled throughout the Islamic world as Washington Post bureau chief for the Middle East, and as a correspondent in Indochina. This gave him, in his own words, "sharp insight into the complexities of that turbulent region." However, the purpose of the book is not to produce a critical or controversial interpretation of Islamic scripture. It is instead to give the American layman an broad understanding of a religion that is highly misunderstood by many Americans. In this way he dispels many myths about "Muslim militants," and the otherwise untrue perception of Islamic violence. In this way the American reader will become more knowledgeable about an otherwise unfamiliar topic. However, the most significant element of Lippman’s book is that it presents Islam in a simple way that makes the reader feels his awareness rise after each chapter. This encourages him to continue learning about the world’s youngest major religion. Understanding Islam dispels many misconceptions about the Muslim world, and presents the subject in a way that urges his reader to further his understanding of Islam through continued study.
On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy gives us insight to the philosophical views of a certain sect of Islam, and how it influenced it 's followers to view the world around them. Although it is helpful, this is written from a very biased position and it cannot be said that the views of the author are the views of Muslim culture as a whole. There is a constant attack on another religious group throughout the article that helps us to understand what this specific sect deems right and wrong through comparison of the groups.
In comparing the average citizen in a democratic nation, say the United States, to that of a non-democratic nation, for instance Egypt, it will be found that the citizen in the democratic nation is generally better off – free of persecution, free from fear of the authorities, and free to express his opinions on governmental matters. And while national conflicts occur everywhere, incidents like violent revolts have shown to be more prevalent in nations where citizens are not allowed to choose who governs them. It is slightly paradoxical that democracy, so inherently flawed in theory, can lead to such successful outcomes in practice. The question, then, becomes: “If democracy has so many weaknesses, why does it work?”
Democratic states are perceived to be more peaceful because “democracies do not attack each other.” The proposition that democracies never (or rarely; there is a good deal of variation about this) go to war against one another has nearly become a truism. Since Michael Doyle’s essay in 1983 pointed out that no liberal democracy has ever fought a war with another democracy , scholars have treated pacifism between as democracies, “as closest thing we have to an empirical law in international relations.” The democratic peace proposition encourages hope for a new age of international peace. Over the years since Michael Doyle’s essay a lot of literature has been written about “democratic peace theory”. A lot of analysis has focused on the claim- that liberal democracies do not fight each one another. There is a lot of action- reaction sequence in the academic arguments. As an idea catches on it accumulates adherents. The more popular an idea, there is more likehood of a critical reaction that raises serious and strong reservations about the validity of the new idea. In this essay, I would like to examine the claim- that democratic states are more peaceful as democracy causes peace. In this essay I draw on the writings of John M. Owen, Michael Doyle, Christopher Layne, Mansfield and Snyder, Alexander Wendt, Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin for their views on why democracies do not fight one another and then deduce my own conclusions.
Ahmed, A. S. (1999). Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim World. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Human history is pock-marked with innumerable wars and revolutions. The cause for most of the revolutions has been the choice of freedom. The opportunity to live a life without physical, mental or emotional restrictions has been and still is of supreme importance to man. This has resulted in the most widely followed discipline of political governance: Democracy.
The democratic peace theory was not always seen as the substantial argument and significant contribution to the field of International Relations that it is today. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the realist and non-realist thought that took preeminence in political theoretical thinking. Though the democratic peace theory was first criticized for being inaccurate in its claim that democracy promotes peace and as such democracies do not conflict with each other, trends, statistical data, reports have suggested and proved that the democratic peace theory is in fact valid in its claim. Over the years, having been refined, developed and amended, it is now most significant in explaining modern politics and it is easy to accept that there is indeed a lot of truth in the stance that democracy encourages peace. The democratic peace theory is a concept that is largely influenced by the likes of Immanuel Kant, Wilson Woodrow and Thomas Paine.
“Are political Islam and democracy compatible?” This question has been troubling both Muslims and non-Muslims living in East and West for a long time now. Contemporary Islamic political thought has become deeply influenced by attempts at reconciling Islam and democracy. Muslim thinkers who deal with political debates cannot disregard the significance of the democratic system, as it is the prevailing theme of modern western political thought. Hence, it is necessary for any alternative political system, whether it is religious or secular, to explore its position with regards to democratic government. In fact, a large literature and media publications have developed over the last century on this heated discourse of democracy versus Islam. While many argue that Islam has all the ingredients of modern state and democratic society, many other reject the phenomena “modernism” and “democracy” as a whole because of their “foreign nature”—alien to “Islamic values”. For Islamists and modernists, the motivation for such effort to either embrace or reject democracy often is to remove suspicion about the nature and goals of Islamic movements and Islamic revivalism or resurgence. But before diving into this discourse, one needs to understand the definition and origins of “democracy.” Although purely a Western ideology in its origin, there is no consensus on the definition of “democracy” as a political system. The Oxford English Dictionary describes democracy as: “A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives” (“democracy, n.”). In my paper, I will examine whether or not democracy and Sunni political Islam are compatible through the eyes of three revolutionary Sun...
Throughout history different types of instrumental regimes have been in tact so civilizations remained structured and cohesive. As humanity advanced, governments obligingly followed. Although there have been hiccups from the ancient times to modern day, one type of government, democracy, has proven to be the most effective and adaptive. As quoted by Winston Churchill, democracy is the best form of government that has existed. This is true because the heart of democracy is reliant, dependent, and thrives on the populaces desires; which gives them the ability for maintaining the right to choose, over time it adjusts and fixes itself to engulf the prominent troubling issues, and people have the right of electing the person they deem appropriate and can denounce them once they no longer appease them. In this paper, the benefits of democracy are outlined, compared to autocratic communism, and finally the flaws of democracy are illustrated.
The foundation of the modern political system was laid in the times when the world was strangled in slavery. In those moments, enlightened minds in Greek came up with the new system that was there to remain for the next thousands of years. This system, now known as democracy, is a form of government in which supreme power is vested to the people themselves. People have the right to elect their leaders directly or indirectly through a scheme of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. A new democratic government is usually established after every 4-5 years, and it is trusted with the responsibility to cater to the needs of all the people irrespective of the fact that they voted for them or not. Although the minorities may not be very pleased with the idea of democracy, however, a democratic government is certainly the best because it establishes social equality among people, reduces the conflicts in the state to a minimum, gives the chance to vote repeatedly, and creates patriotism.