Islamic Democracy: A Valid Concept or an Oxymoron?
By Ali Paya*
The Author argues that the central question which will be critically assessed in this study is the validity or otherwise of the concept of 'Islamic Democracy'. Following a very brief historical background with regard to the ways in which a number of eminent Muslim scholars have approached this topic, I shall turn to a more philosophical discussion concerning the notion of 'social constructs', the way they are constructed and their functions. It will be argued that 'democracy' as a social construct can take various shapes and forms. However, in all of these models a core set of functions must be preserved to enable us to identify this particular 'construct' as democracy and not something else. It will be further explained that all social constructs, as machines or technologies, which are devised to facilitate man's social needs, display two different capacities. On the one hand, they can be regarded as pure instruments. On the other, they carry with them the values which are invested in them by the social actors. In this respect, a machine or technology like democracy can, in principle, acquire the values added to it by those social actors who happen to be Muslim. The upshot of the arguments of the paper is that since different interpretations of Islam are conceivable, various combinations of 'Islam' and 'democracy' can be constructed. The challenge for Muslim intellectuals however is to produce a model of 'Islamic democracy' which can prove its mettle as an efficient political system. A system which is most suitable for the needs of the modern Islamic societies. A system superior to the existing systems in these societies and yet comparable with its best rivals/counterparts in other parts of the world including the developed countries. In the last part of paper I shall briefly introduce the outline of a model of 'Islamic democracy' which is based on a critical rationalist reading of Islam.
* National Research Institute for Science Policy (NRISP) Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster (UK) [email protected]
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