"There is no god but Allah, and Gaddafi is his enemy!" So reads one of the popular mottos used by the Libyan rebels, who just put an end to Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year-long tyranny after a chaotic civil war. Similarly, most rebel fighters who captured Tripoli this week were chanting, "Allahu Akbar!," which means, "God is the greatest!" ("Allah" in Arabic simply means "God.")
Ironically, though, the now-dethroned Libyan colonel, too, had long been referring to God to justify his dictatorial rule. A mantra of his regime bluntly read: "Allah, Muammar, Libya -- that's all we need!"
The image of Allah, in other words, seems to have shifted in the minds of many Libyans from a pillar of authoritarian rule to a beacon of liberty.
A similar transformation seems to be ongoing in Syria as well, which used to have its own version of the authoritarian Arab trinity: "Allah, Syria, Bashar -- that's all we need!" But the peaceful Syrian protestors who have been raising their voice against the dictatorship of Bashar Assad and co., despite all the killing and torture they face, are now using a different motto: "Allah, Syria, Freedom -- that's all we need!"
It is perfectly understandable that such religious themes within the Arab Spring comes as confusing, if not worrying, to the Islamo-sceptic Westerners (and even some Arab secular liberals) who assume that all political manifestations of Islam will lead to tyranny. Moreover, they have in their mind the unpleasant case of the Iranian Revolution, which, after a brief "spring" in 1979, replaced the secular dictatorship of the Shah not with liberal democracy, but Islamic theocracy.
However, the history of the Muslim civilization shows that Islam has been understood in many different ways, and while it sometimes has been used to support tyrants, it more often than not challenged them. In fact, one of the very early theological splits in Islam was precisely on this issue. The successive caliphs of the Umayyad Dynasty (661-750 AD) promoted a theory of divine predestination, which implied that the corrupt Umayyad rule was predestined, and thus willed by God. The opposing theologians, who defended humans' freewill, argued that rulers were responsible to both God and the people.
After a few centuries of debate, the Sunni view on this matter settled on a middle position, which valued strong rulers, but also expected them to be just and lawful. In other words, as historian Bernard Lewis notes, "Islamic tradition strongly disapprove[d] of arbitrary rule." In the Ottoman Empire, the ritualistic expression of this idea was a popular slogan that common people would say to the sultans after Friday prayers: "Don't be arrogant my sultan, God is greater than thou!"
In the modern age, however, traditional Islamic law, whose functions included constraining arbitrary power, failed to update itself, and was gradually rendered ineffective via "modernization." As Noah Feldman illustrated brilliantly, this process produced not the liberal democracy of the West, but various secular (and sometimes fiercely secularist) autocrats -- such as the Atatürk of Turkey, Reza Shah of Iran, or the Nasser of Egypt.
Islamism, the totalitarian ideology that aspires for an "Islamic state," was more of a reaction to this modern crisis, rather than a direct continuation of the Islamic tradition. It was also based on an export of the worst ideas of the West. One of the founders of the Islamist ideology, Pakistani thinker Sayyid Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, had openly acknowledged that his "Islamic state" would "bear a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states," in the way it would dominate the whole society.
Now, here is the key question for today: If Mawdudi and his followers synthesized Islam with totalitarianism, can others synthesize it with liberal democracy?
The answer does not look as grim as some suspect, as I argue in more detail in my new book, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty. Not only the symbolic combination of "Allah" and "freedom" in the minds of the Arab masses, but also the ongoing discussions within more moderate Islamic parties show positive signs. Turkey's incumbent Justice and Development Party also seems to play an indirect role, by showing that pious Muslims can well be a part of the democratic game and gain from it. As covered in this very interesting report, at least the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood of Syria seems to have taken important lessons from the Turkish case, and got transformed from a militant and oppressive group to a moderate and relatively liberal one.
To be sure, a probable transformation of the Muslim mind from authoritarianism to liberalism would be a very challenging process, which would face many obstacles. But was the political evolution of Christianity any easier? It certainly took a lot effort to move from the Spanish Inquisition and the "divine right of kings" to the liberating motto of Benjamin Franklin: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." Islam, I believe, is just no less capable of going the same distance.
Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish journalist, and the author of the just-released Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty. (W.W. Norton)
Follow Mustafa Akyol on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AkyolinEnglish
Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens: The Future of Campus Extremism?
Islam and democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Can Islam and Democracy Coexist?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism
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Political Islam is tyranny by definition.
Allah is the tyrant who allows no appeal from his word, the Koran. His punishment is in this world and for eternity. The Ulama are his oligarchs who interpret the tyrant's words in fiqh, the Caliph is his enforcer in this world, guided by fiqh.
The same is true of any state in which the word of a deity is the supreme law.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Non-Quranic-Hadith-Based-Islam-is-a-PROBLEM/133590996653846
Are you Shia ? if not please disclose your sect of in Islam (if you are moslem), if you do not mind.
I disagree with your history references; And there is a diffrence between how people use religion for their own purposes and divine law. I also like to add Sharia law is NOT divine law, its all man made.
In U. S. history, Morocco was the first nation to recognize the United States of America as a sovereign nation.
While that is true, it is not very helpful in the present war.
To deal with the problems between Islamism and the West now, either the orthodox view of Sharia law found in classic fiqh must be revised to Western standards of law and human rights or the reverse must happen.
There is no synthesis of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam presently and it is unlikely it will ever happen, given the fundamental differences.
Muslims living in the West are between a rock and a hard place. They must choose one or the other--they are mutually exclusive.
If they choose Sharia law over Western law, they should vote with their feet--immigrate to a Sharia society--rather than remain in the West as unwelcome colonists for the Umma.
Those who choose Western law are free to remain in the West as full citizens who view their religion as merely one among equal religions, all subject to the supreme law of secular governance.
Framing every political phenomenon between the Muslim-majority nations as a Christianity vs. Islam conflict is a very destructive world view. It ignores the role of past policies that have created a lot of the present problems facing these regions. What bad policy has created, good policy can fix so history doesn't repeat itself.
Sharia does not apply to non-Muslims. Also, the United States only precedent of a legal system is a civil system, as outlined the in the U. S. Constitution. The fact that that the U. S. is constitutionally forbidden from establishin a state religion means that if the United States grants one religion the authority to establish its own criminal justice system, then ALL religions likewise have that right. Whatever other arbitration people mutally agree to is their own business. After all, Christians often submit to the doctrinal positions of their respective sects regarding life decisions and few complain about that.
As a matter of national values, integrity and sovereignty, we must govern according to what what WE believe about government, liberty and human/civil rights and not in response to what other countries do.
It would seem that atheism is as intellectually stifling as it claims religion to be, based on the rote responses of most of its adherents.
There is no such thing as a theocratic democracy.
Rights of minorities, however small a minority might be, must be protected in a true democracy.
Jesus himself never promoted a theocracy. He said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," and that "the kingdom of God is within you," meaning that it's not a political aspiration that can be met with earthly governance.
The more control-oriented (dogmatic) a person is, in terms of religion, the more control-oriented (dogmatic) they tend to be politically, as well (see: Christian Dominionism).
Such attitudes are not reflective of the entire religion, no matter how much people who want you to hate the religion may try to get you to believe it.
The ultra-dogmatic are always a small percentage, in any religion.
I highly recommend the book and related video "What's Right With Islam" by (Imam) Feisal Abdul Rauf for an excellent and scholarly overview of exactly how Islam and democratic principles are compatible.
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/imam_faisal_abdul_rauf_whats_right_with_islam/
We "presume" that because Muslim nations state again and again in their Constitutions that Islam is the basis of their laws.
Arab Spring was surprising to us here is the west because we had not seen the regimes that were toppled as that bad - bad to be sure but not THAT bad. However the people ruled know better than anyone else about their rulers. For now we all must hope for the best and let those Muslim nations work out their own destinies.
If another form of government is just and people are generally happy as they feel being treated fairly, is it still bad?
It is therefore the simplest thing to realize that if something appears on both sides of an equation, that something can be omitted from the calculation and the result will still be the same. In other words, the legends, dogmas, and customs of Islam, along with the idea that an omnipotent omniscient creator deity exists, have nothing to do with democracy in the 21st century. They are simply irrelevant. The case for freedom, civil liberties, human rights, and democracy is solid and complete without any of the fantastical assumptions of Islam.
Instead of relying on bigotry to do your thinking, read books. There are plenty of good books about the history of Islam.
And, even better than books, I've been to Islamic nations. I've seen their ideas of 'democracy' and 'liberty'. Pretty much pre-Enlightenment, if not pre-Dark Ages.
As the sage said, "Religion poisons everything".
The only places where we see democracy and Islam mix are places where the theocratic reach of Islam is controlled, allowing secular principals like democracy to take root.