Talk:Islam and democracy

Lets cut it clear

Democracy = (the will of the people.) Islamic Law "Shari'ah" = (the will of the Almighty Allah and the rights of the people.)

Big difference guys, if you think about it nicely Democracy is a Distorted Copy of Shari'ah Law, this is a fact when we go and have a look through our history books. Shari'ah Law is as free and fare as it can be, Law is Law it has it's freedoms and it's limits. If we compare the two systems Shari'ah is a complete system of law and therefore does not need or have any adjustment or ammendments to be made to it where as with the democratic system it constantly changes and every democratic country changes it to suit their own liking what is law in one place is not law in another. Shari'ah Law never changes so when we talk about Islamic Democracy we are talking about Shari'ah Law the official Muslim Law. Do better research guys seriously some of you don't make sense. Islaam is an investigative religion it is only based on logical evidence, if you study religion and politics and start to view things more openly without a closed mind you actually find historical gold. Thanks for your views there are some good points made here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.202.5.106 (talk) 08:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Democracy is a distorted copy of sharia law? That is a joke right? Democracy predates sharia by more than a millenium. I don't know to which history book you are referring, but it certainly isn't a history book with actual history in it. Sharia is as "free and fare[sic] as it can be? I guess that is true if you work from the belief that Islam is intolerant and backward, which it clearly is. If you accept the fact that Islam will never treat women, homosexuals, non-Muslims, essentially anyone who is not a heterosexual Muslim man, any better than second class citizens, then yes, I suppose sharia is as "fare" as it could be. And if you labor under the assumption that sharia will always proscribe the free practice of non-Muslim religions, and will continue to call for the execution of apostates and the taxing and subjugation of non-Muslims, then yes I suppose it will always be as "free" as it is now as well. Islam is only based on logical evidence? The phrase logical evidence doesn't belong in a sentence describing any religion, and that is doubly true of Islam. And calls for openness are pretty hilarious coming from an adherent of the most intolerant ideology of the past 14 centuries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.154.75 (talk) 07:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

"Do better research guys seriously some of you don't make sense."

Man if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. It is also pretty hilarious how you act as if you are telling us something new and sinister when you "reveal" to us that democratic states change to some degree or another based upon the will of the people. No kidding. Aside from the fact that democracy predates Islam by centuries, I guess it is true that democracy is a distorted form of sharia, if by distorted you mean sharia doesn't even remotely resemble the legal system of a democracy in any way shape or form. It is not a coincidence that almost every majority-Muslim country on Earth is an undemocratic hellhole.

Purpose of this article, and what to be discussed

As I look at this article, it seems that it's very unclear what the issue to be discussed/described is. When we talk about the relationship between Islam and democracy, there are two separate questions being conflated (thus the confusion and argument about the page).

The first question is a matter of doctrine/philosophy. Is Islam compatible with the tenets of liberal democracy? It's not as though there's a definitive, timeless answer to this question. The issue seems to be to define the positions/stances of the various interested parties--different Islamic movements, major theologians and religious leaders, Western writers in the Orientalist tradition, Western writers in other traditions.

The second question is an empirical one. Is there a correlation between Islamic beliefs and support (or rejection) of democratic values? A relationship between Islamic piety and a particular vision of good government? Or, on the aggregate level, is there a causal relationship between a country having a large historically Muslim population and its achieved level of democracy? There is a very active academic research agenda on these questions in political science and sociology using a wide range of data.

These issues must be dealt with separately. Philosophical/Theological claims don't tell us anything at all about the second set of questions--only data collected through observation can. I'll try to find time to come in and do this myself, but I think the current organization of the article puts all the weight on the first set of questions, and makes it seem like there is an obvious, indisputable link between the assertions of religious or government officials and political outcomes, which may be (but isn't necessarily) true. 66.191.124.53 (talk) 05:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)h

I agree with these points. I've added a table which deals with the second question (correlation of democracy/islamic beliefs), and also shows which states are Islamic states, state religion or neither. I think this also helps to juxtapose western ideas of democracy with non-western ideas, and clarify Islamic republic v Islamic state v majority muslim state. I've linked to this from List of Muslim majority countries, Islam and secularism, and democracy in the middle east. Halon8 (talk) 13:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting Idea

Interesting idea, but too one sided, and as said on the deletion page, an essay. The article could explore Islamo-democratic regimes such as Turkey, but doesn't really do so.

p.s. I have tried editing this article into something respectable. The user Livajo (?) pointed out a copyright violation. I have appended a list of Islamic democracies.

Before you even read the discussion here at Wiki you must read the link I've provided first

http://thetruereligion.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/democracy-vs-our-religion/

Al-Faarooq the current head and Rep of the UMN challenges the Democratic System VS Shariah and wants to take the matter up in a court of law on the Intl Level. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.202.5.106 (talk) 07:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

VFD discussion

This article was proposed for deletion December 2004. The discussion is available at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Islamic Democracy

Possible copyright problem in history

Below text moved from Wikipedia:Copyright problems listing from December 12:

• Islamic Democracy from [1]. [[User:Livajo|Ливай | ☺]] 23:06, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Rewritten in place, still on survived VFD --rbrwr^± 23:22, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Friction between western democracies and Islam

I've removed this section twice now. I don't think it's relevant to this article, given the clear definition on its scope with which it starts. I think the discussion is worth an article, but it needs to be created and linked from elsewhere, not from this page. --G Rutter 14:54, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why? (roll) I think it is perfectly relevant, which is why I included it. Otherwise it's going to have some godawful long title like "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_between_western_democracies_and_Islam_in_a_political_context" ! If it was elsewhere, it would probably end up becoming something quite different, and a target for both redneck American fundamentalists and middle eastern Islamic fundamentalists at the same time... Come to think of it, why did you cut that part out, but leave the piece about the former Soviet Union in?

I left the Soviet section in as it's a start to discussing the democratization (or not) of predominately Muslim countries in central Asia. Your section is on Muslims living in the West and they're treated by those countries, which is outside the scope of this article. How about "Islam and Western democracies" or something like that? You could link to it from the Democracy article for at start. Actually, there's probably two articles there- one on the French ban (there's a one sentence mention in the Democracy article) and one on the relations between Islam and the West - the Shabina Begum case in the UK would make an interesting discussion. Let me know when you create them and I'll try and help. --G Rutter 18:47, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think that this section should be restored. Islam and Western Democracies have had a long interaction, and this has affected Islamic perception of democracy. European imperialism in North Africa, and current American occupation and involvement in large sections of the middle east also affects this. Turkey's possible future into the EU, is also involvement with western democracies, and will dictate the fate of a large region. MacRusgail 16:20, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

List of countries

Turkey

"The Turkish government supports mosques, and requires religious instruction for all students. " By reading this and the previous sentence I get the impression that Turkey has always supported religious education which is incorrect. Religious education was injected into Turkish education by the 1980 military junta.

The more I look at this article the clearer it becomes that this article is beyond recovery and should be deleted. It is fundamentally flawed. What is Islamic Democracy? First paragraph talks about types of democracies. But following the same rule one can arrive at a definitions like Christian Democracy, Buddhist Democracy. But I have not seen a section with these names.

Germany

Hi, I put back Germany as a democratic country with a significant Muslim minority. I think it depends what you call "significant" of course, but according to Wikipedia's article, "Approximately 3.7 million Muslims (mostly of Turkish descent) live in Germany." Germany has a population of "82,531,700" according to the same article. They're certainly one of the more visible minorities there. There's not many of them in rural areas, but Berlin has a large Muslim population I think. See what you think...

- R. Bell

• personally I think it's a significant minority, but you only need one example of a European country. Kappa 08:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The French and German governments seem to have taken very different approaches towards Muslims, and Muslim immigrants. France has clamped down on the burqa, but Germany seems to be much more open.

Why isn't Iran in the list of countries for Islamic democracies?

Just an interesting question that I had, for whoever that wants to answer it. Why isn't the Islamic REPUBLIC of Iran considered a democracy according to your list??? Is it because your definition of democracy differs from what the Islamic republic offers? If yes I would love to know what aspects of it conflict with democracy in your opinion, since there are elections, a parliament, a popularly elected president, and ...

M.T

I've now added Iran to the list- you could have added it yourself you know. I didn't write the list, so I don't know why Iran wasn't included, but it could have been a mistake. Of course the Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts do wield undemocratic influence over the electoral process, etc but given the other countries on the list I don't think that Iran should necessarily be excluded. --G Rutter 09:19, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Iran is not a democracy, due to the supreme ruler. This would make it more of a semi-presidential Republic —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snkla2 (talk • contribs) 04:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Whilst Iran is not a "western democracy" it does have free and fair elections most of the time. The Supreme Ruler acts as a chief jurist, and in any case is appointed by the parlaiment --Tutan89 (talk) 09:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Algeria

Given the change in the political scene in Algeria, the country needs to be added to the list. The influence of the military is still playing a role somehow but the last presidential elections in April 2004 was witnessed to be fair by international monitors. Morever, the president Bouteflika (in his second term winning 85% of the electoral vote) has promised to solve the problem in the Berber region of Kabayle as well as to free women from restrictive family codes (following somehow the example of Morocco) and introducing the second version of the so-called “true national reconciliation” from the civil war.

Any comments? Svest 14:24, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think that "democratic" is a relative term, and is not absolute or constant. In addition, some regions of a state can be more democratic than others. Put it in, if you haven't already. MacRusgail 16:23, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

New edits

I congratulate the work of Guy Montag for monitoring the article! W/O that effort we'd end up with almost "500" countries in the list, including Jupiter and probably Israel itself. Cheers -- Svest 00:03, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Morocco (North Africa) (98.7%)

Should it be mentioned that Morocco is an occupying force in Western Sahara? That isn't particularly democratic. - FrancisTyers 00:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Islamic democracy? Turkey?

POV

• The references are made in wrong direction than the context. It is a kind of offensive action against personalities.
• It is better to discuss about Iran in subsections rather than preamble.
• Ruhollah Khomeini is belongs to recent years. It is better to mension other people from past centuries also. See Hassan Modarres etc.

Farhoudk 12:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Translations

Could someone with knowledge in the source language please clean up the Notes section? It's difficult to understand what e.g. the following means:

"When not referring to the people votes results in accuse of tyranny then it is allowed to resign ourselves to people vote but as secondary commandments like eating corpse"

clacke 02:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

"When not referring to the people votes results in accuse of tyranny then it is allowed to accept people vote as a secondary commandments, like eating corpse"

Primary commandment: Eating corpse of animals is Haraam.

Secondary commandment: In case one is in danger of death due to hunger then he/she has permission to eat as much as prevents his/her death. So it turns to Halaal in this case. But as you can see it is conditional.

The quoted sentence shows week compatibility of their POV and democracy, since it is conditional. As you can see in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_democracy#Shia.27s_viewpoint the idea of Khomeini is completely different.

Farhoudk 19:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I've never heard of secondary commandments before, since I haven't studied Islamic concepts much. But the sentence is still not correct English, and quite hard to follow, so I was hoping that someone could make it more readable. Does it mean something like this?

If not letting the people vote would result in accusations of tyranny, then voting is allowed as a second commandment, like when eating the corpse of an animal.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ClaesWallin (talk • contribs) 15:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

Yap. "referring to" is better translation than "letting" Farhoudk 05:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

"majority religion"

it is completely untenable to call an "Islamic democracy" any democracy that happens to have an Islamic majority population. By this argument, France would be a "Roman Catholic democracy", and India a "Hindu democracy", both countries upholding strict separation of church and state, as does Turkey. Saying that Islamic democracies "attempt to reconcile Islam with a secular, democratic state" is nonsense. Nobody ever said a democratic state needs to be secular. A democratic state is first and foremost anything the electorate bloody well wants it to be. A country can very well be democratic and not secular. Saying that they "attempt" to reconcile Islam with democracy is hilarious pov, implying that this is somehow more difficult than reconciling Christianity with democracy (we would need to state that "Greece is attempting to reconcile Orthodox Christianity with a democratic state". dab (𒁳) 10:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I would point out that whilst I agree that whilst Turkey is commonly reffered to as a secular republic, it does not separate whurch and state, wuite the opposite. Islam in Turkey is the established religion, and the only religion administrated by the state. That's not to say you could call it an Islamic Democracy andy more than you could call the UK an "Anglican Democracy" -but it's not secular in the same way as India or the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.20.16 (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A very poor definition

"A democratic state where the majority of the population are Muslim"

Following this wonderful piece of logic, can we conclude that France, Italy, Spain etc. are "Christian democracies"?

And Turkey is a secular republic. It's more secular than Greece, Norway as they have official religions.

Thus I'm going to remove the associated parts. You may clean up the mess, but don't undo it altogether. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slntssssn (talk • contribs) 13:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, referring to Iran as a democracy is stretching the definition of democracy so far as to render it meaningless. Iran is ruled by an unelected body of clerics; that is not democracy.

Turkey is a Secular Greco-Roman democracy with a Islamic majority population

It is a Islamic country or a state with Islamic majority population but with a governmental system based on a secular Greco-Roman (also called 'Western') model of democracy, although it may have Islamic parties. The Turkish government is not based on a model of Islamic democracy which is Islamic Shouracracy - a party-less republic.ILAKNA (talk) 14:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you provide a reliable source that support this position? Aecis^Brievenbus 16:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

What about political parties?

I feel this article would be improved by mentioning the various political parties that stand for some sort of 'Islamic democracy' - i.e., Islamic parties that accept and work within a democratic system. Examples include Turkey's AK Party, Malaysia's UMNO party, the Pakistan Muslim League and various parties in Indonesia. See this article from The Economist: [2] Terraxos (talk) 13:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Islamic democracy

The presence of Islamic parties in a Greco-Roman democracy modeled system of government in an Islamic country ie. with a majority of Islamic population & even if provided in the constitution that Islam will be the prevailing religion, although 'labelled so' does not turn it into a Islamic Democracy which is Islamic Shouracracy - a party-less republic For a government to be a 'Islamic democracy', the label has to match with the contents also. This applies to all these kinds of governments wherever they may be.ILAKNA (talk) 14:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you provide a reliable source that supports this position? Aecis^Brievenbus 16:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[Q:5:50]("Do they want the rule of the Ignorance {ie. not based on God's guidance} & who is better from God in rule {as He is the All-Knowing & the All-Wise, no one is knowing more than Him because He has always existed since from before the beginning of creation & there was no time that He did not exist, no one is wiser than Him because He has created everything so He has the detailed knowledge of everything because He has designed it so He knows how everything works} for a people who are certain" {about God}). As per this text, the Greco-Roman democracy qualifies as the rule of Ignorance & not rule of Islam. The rule of Islam is Shouracracy [Q:42:38] or Islamic Democracy. The detail of working of Islamic democracy was posted here.ILAKNA (talk) 04:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

POV

The two definitions provided don't match the definition of democracy. It all seems like a kind of contradictio in terminis to me. PS I've your so found of your regimes, get your own word for it and don't abuse the Greek language. Bombshell (talk) 19:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Are there any other POV issues besides this smallminded drivel? What are the reasons this article is tagged npov? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.191.15 (talk) 05:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In what way is that objection small-minded? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.154.75 (talk) 08:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It is an insult to the readers intelligence to say that Iran is a democracy

Everybody knows that the Basij stages the elections. Only mullah approved candidates are allowed to run. The Basij militia does the vote counting and runs the places where you can 'vote'. All employed people in the gov't and private sector has to turn up and get their ID cards stamped so the Mullahs can see that they have voted 'correctly'. If you want proof, look it up on Google. Please don't be a coward and delete this. This is related to the composition of the article. 87.59.78.18 (talk) 12:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. Calling Iran a democracy is an absolute joke. It is akin to calling the Soviet Union or Hussein-era Iraq, places where one candidate won 99% of the "vote", a democracy. Moreover, Iran is actually ruled by an unelected group of clerics. It seems the real motive behind calling Iran a democracy is some sort of flimsy attempt to rebut the fact that the vast majority of Majority-Muslim countries are wholly undemocratic.

Move

Move to Islam and democracy. -Stevertigo 06:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

How is that possible?

How can this be possible? Islam doesn't seem democratic. Lucas Duke (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hoax?

• I guess I'm confused as to how this article is a hoax. Erpert (let's talk about it) 17:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

First paragraph

hi

Ive made a few changes, but with your supprot with like to make a few more . The link to harvard study does not work :/

1. A firmly secular state which recognizes no state religion and religious doctrines and ideas play no role in development of laws. Although public opinion may lead to influence on some laws

2. A democratic state which recognizes Islam as state religion, such as Malaysia, Algeria, or Maldives are examples of Islamic Democracies. Some religious values are incorporated into public life by elected represenatives, but the intepretation of Islamic law lies with elected representaives. The extent to which the goverment enforces religious princples in public life like alcohol ban are limited is not the only source of law.

2. A "democratic" state which endeavours to institute Sharia. It is also called as Islamic theocratic democracy.[1] Islamic Theocracies offers more broad range of inclusion of Islam principles into the affairs of the state.The Role of goverment and security services extends into enforcing every religious edict. States like Iran (and saudi arabia, but saudi is not a democracy) are firm proponents of this form. The extent to which the goverment enforces the religion is set in the constition and laws are regarding affairs to do with religoin e.g crime are interpreted by scholars. Whilst elected representives decide non religious things like Taxation and Envirometnal policy

I think the word islamist has negative connations ? --Tutan89 (talk) 10:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

also with pakistan, that country has a parliament and scholars play not role in govt.Some leaders like Shaukat Aziz where very secular and others like Nawaz Sharif where not so.It depedns on the party in power and if the party in power wants to form an electoral alliance with conservative religous parties — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tutan89 (talk • contribs) 10:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

edit : why does freedom house get to decide which countries are democracies ? different states have different levels of freedom according to the unique security and political enviroment. In Europe you are now allowed to carry guns or deny the holocaust does freedom house regard that as undemocratic ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tutan89 (talk • contribs) 10:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

What in the world does carrying a gun or denying the Holocaust have to do with a country's status as a democracy? Freedom House refers to most majority-Muslim states as undemocratic because they don't hold legitimate, systematic elections to determine who leads a particular country. They are called undemocratic because that is exactly what they are. And isn't it amazing how the "level of freedom" of virtually every Majority-Muslim state is so low as to be essentially non-existent? I guess the security and political environment found in each of those countries isn't that "unique" after all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.154.75 (talk) 08:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Table on democracy indices

I would like to see the table on democracy indices kept for the following reasons

1. It provides a lot of useful information in a concise form, rather than having a wall of text.

2.It provides a useful counterpoint to the 'in practice' sections. The indices definitely have their flaws and present a certain western viewpoint, but they are widely used, and so ought to be included.

3. The 'in practice' section can never be long enough to include discussion on all countries, but the table provides many links.

4. It demonstrates the wide variety of islamic democracies, as well as providing contextual information i.e. countries that are in the muslim world but have a secular government (whether democratic or not). Since 'islamic democracy' means many different things to different people, I think it's useful to show the variety.

5. There is a similar table on the democracy in the middle east page, so the rationale is probably similar.

6. A lot of this material is likely to end up back in the text. It's much clearer as a table.

Please discuss Halon8 (talk) 00:19, 23 January 2013 (UTC)