IS DEMOCRACY COMPATIBLE WITH ISLAM
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
How Muslims Approach Novel Issues
Actions in Islam are graded as accepted or not based on three elements. All actions must be: in accordance with the Sunna, purely for Allah’s sake, and done with utmost determination (‘azm). All actions we do as Muslims are classified.
A fatwa on a particular issue determines one of nine positions:
Obligatory (fard or wajib)
Highly recommended (Sunnah mu’akkadah)
Recommended (Sunnah, mustahabb, tatawwu’)
Slightly recommended (fadilah, raghibah)
Allowable (mubah)
Disliked/hated (makruh)
Minor sin (saghirah, dhanb, ithm, sa’yyi’)
Heretical innovation (bid’ah)
Major sin (kabirah, fahsha, munkar)
Disbelief or apostasy (shirk, kufr, ridda, nifaq akbar)
The issue of whether or not a Muslim can vote is a disputed issue. What is the ruling on it? As such, we have a mechanism to resolve disputes in Islam. Allah says,
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا أَطيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطيعُوا الرَّسولَ وَأُولِي الأَمرِ مِنكُم ۖ فَإِن تَنازَعتُم في شَيءٍ فَرُدّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسولِ إِن كُنتُم تُؤمِنونَ بِاللَّهِ وَاليَومِ الآخِرِ ۚ ذٰلِكَ خَيرٌ وَأَحسَنُ تَأويلًا
O you who have faith! Obey Allah and obey the Apostle and those vested with authority among you. And if you dispute concerning anything, refer it to Allah and the Apostle, if you have faith in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and more favorable in outcome.
[4:59]
RELATED: Why There Is No Such Thing as a Democracy in the Modern World
In Islam we have rulings (ahkam) which are theoretical, and then we have applied rulings to situations (fatawa). The ‘ulama study and develop all the ahkam that they possibly can from the wahi. Then, whenever a situation occurs which requires a ruling (‘illa) we formulate a fatwa based on the ahkam. So, we need to know the hukm of democratic elections then develop a fatwa for our circumstances.
What is a Democracy?
What is the ‘illa? The ‘illa is that we have a democratic election coming up. So, what is democracy and what is the election? Democracy is a Greek term coming from two words: demos and kratos. It means, “power to the people”. In the ancient Greek city-state of Athens, democracy was a system of government based on lottery. All free Greek males had their names in a pot and a person would be randomly selected for governance.
RELATED: The Logical End of Democracy
C. L. R. James,
Perhaps the most striking thing about Greek Democracy was that the administration (and there were immense administrative problems) was organized upon the basis of what is known as sortition, or, more easily, selection by lot. The vast majority of Greek officials were chosen by a method which amounted to putting names into a hat and appointing the ones whose names came out.
Now the average CIO bureaucrat or Labor Member of Parliament in Britain would fall in a fit if it was suggested to him that any worker selected at random could do the work that he is doing, but that was precisely the guiding principle of Greek Democracy. And this form of government is the government under which flourished the greatest civilization the world has ever known.
Modern parliamentary democracy elects representatives and these representatives constitute the government. Before the democracy came into power, the Greeks had been governed by various forms of government, including government by representatives. The democracy knew representative government and rejected it. It refused to believe that the ordinary citizen was not able to perform practically all the business of government. Not only did the public assembly of all the citizens keep all the important decisions in its own hands. For the Greek, the word isonomia, which meant equality, was used interchangeably for democracy. For the Greek, the two meant the same thing. For the Greek, a man who did not take part in politics was an idiotes, an idiot, from which we get our modern word idiot, whose meaning, however, we have limited. Not only did the Greeks choose all officials by lot, they limited their time of service. When a man had served once, as a general rule, he was excluded from serving again because the Greeks believed in rotation, everybody taking his turn to administer the state.
[Every Cook Can Govern: A Study of Democracy in Ancient Greece & Its Meaning for Today]
Are Modern States Truly Democratic?
Over time, the meaning of this word began to shift and change. Democracy no longer became what it originally was, and the reality is that there is no agreed upon form or modality of it. Nowadays, democracy is as much a religious ideal as a political one. It is just some lofty goal to aspire towards without any true substance or meaning. In fact, the United States is not a democracy and it is not a republic.
Ron Formisano,
A permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in our nation’s history. Its self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption contribute to rising inequality. Its reach extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power, it enables the creation of an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power.
[American Oligarchy: The Permanent Political Class]
RELATED: Democracy as Farce
The United States is what is known as a capitalistic “competitive oligarchy”. A competitive oligarchy is a system whereby multiple very powerful small groups of people periodically compete for power. There is essentially an entrenched ruling class which is propertied and powerful, whom contest with one another for the seat of governance. Though most people believe the United States is a democratic republic, the reality is that the democratic and republican feathers are mostly secondary features of this system. The core of this system is oligarchical.
What is the Difference Between a Religion and a Political System?
Is there a difference? Talal Assad,
Taylor takes it for granted that the emergence of secularism is closely connected to the rise of the modern nation-state, and he identifies two ways in which secularism has legitimized it. …
Secularism is not simply an intellectual answer to a question about enduring social peace and toleration. It is an enactment by which a political medium (representation of citizenship) redefines and transcends particular and differentiating practices of the self that are articulated through class, gender, and religion. In contrast, the process of mediation enacted in “premodern” societies includes ways in which the state mediates local identities without aiming at transcendence.
According to “Communication between Cultures” by Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, and Roy, a culture’s deep structure is composed of: “such elements as family (clans), state (community), and religion (worldview), [which] are important because they perpetuate a culture’s most significant beliefs and values.”
The core principle of Democracy is that the people govern themselves by coming up with their own laws and then voting on them, and then the laws with the majority of votes go into effect. This system is based on man’s misguided desires and upon the majority decision:
“And if you obey most of those on earth, they will mislead you far away from Allah’s Path. They follow nothing but conjectures, and they do nothing but lie.” http://legacy.quran.com/6/116
“Have you seen the one who takes as his god his own desire?” http://legacy.quran.com/25/43
Democracy takes Allah’s right to legislate, which He has alone as He is the only Creator and the only Lord and thus the only One Who decides halaal and haraam (i.e. the principle of Tawheed al-Haakimiyyah), and instead gives it to man. This is clear cut kufr and shirk, and to willingly participate in this system by voting is an act of shirk. The political climate is irrelevant and makes no difference.
Democracy is a system of the people, by the people, for the people. Islam is the system of Allah, by Allah, for Allah. The two can never intermix or be compatible with each other.
No Muslim can deny that only Allah is allowed to legislate. He says,
إِنَّ رَبَّكُمُ اللَّهُ الَّذي خَلَقَ السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضَ في سِتَّةِ أَيّامٍ ثُمَّ استَوىٰ عَلَى العَرشِ يُغشِي اللَّيلَ النَّهارَ يَطلُبُهُ حَثيثًا وَالشَّمسَ وَالقَمَرَ وَالنُّجومَ مُسَخَّراتٍ بِأَمرِهِ ۗ أَلا لَهُ الخَلقُ وَالأَمرُ ۗ تَبارَكَ اللَّهُ رَبُّ العالَمينَ
Indeed your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and then settled on the Throne. He draws the night’s cover over the day, which pursues it swiftly, and [He created] the sun, the moon, and the stars, [all of them] disposed by His command. Look! All creation and command belong to Him. Blessed is Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.
[Sura al-A’raf, The Heights (7):54]
ما تَعبُدونَ مِن دونِهِ إِلّا أَسماءً سَمَّيتُموها أَنتُم وَآباؤُكُم ما أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ بِها مِن سُلطانٍ ۚ إِنِ الحُكمُ إِلّا لِلَّهِ ۚ أَمَرَ أَلّا تَعبُدوا إِلّا إِيّاهُ ۚ ذٰلِكَ الدّينُ القَيِّمُ وَلٰكِنَّ أَكثَرَ النّاسِ لا يَعلَمونَ
You do not worship besides Him but [mere] names that you and your fathers have coined, for which Allah has not sent down any authority. Sovereignty belongs only to Allah. He has commanded you to worship none except Him. That is the upright religion, but most people do not know.
[Sura Yusuf, (12):40]
قُلِ اللَّهُ أَعلَمُ بِما لَبِثوا ۖ لَهُ غَيبُ السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضِ ۖ أَبصِر بِهِ وَأَسمِع ۚ ما لَهُم مِن دونِهِ مِن وَلِيٍّ وَلا يُشرِكُ في حُكمِهِ أَحَدًا
Say, ‘Allah knows best how long they remained. To Him belongs the Unseen of the heavens and the earth. How well does He see! How well does He hear! They have no guardian besides Him, and none shares with Him in His judgement.
[Sura al-Kahf, the Cave (18):26]
Does Democracy Allow for Islam?
Talal Assad,
“The construction of civilizational difference is not exclusive in any simple sense. The de-essentialization of Islam is paradigmatic for all thinking about the assimilation of non-European poeples to European civilization. The idea that people’s historical experience is inessential to them, that it can be shed at will, makes it possible to argue more strongly for the Enlightenment’s claim to universality: Muslims, as members of the abstract category “humans,” can be assimilated or (as some recent theorist have put it) “translated” into a global (“European”) civilization once they have divested themselves of what many of them regard (mistakenly) as essential to themselves. The belief that human beings can be separated from their histories and traditions makes it possible to urge a Europeanization of the Islamic world. And by the same logic, it underlies the belief that the assimilation to Europe’s civilization of Muslim immigrants who are–for good or for ill–already in European states is necessary and desirable.”
― Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
Is Voting Acceptable?
Therefore, it is indisputable that the ruling on voting in a democratic election is: shirk. Running as a candidate, legislating, voting, campaigning, and even being pleased with it – are all shirk.
Some will argue that it is shura or mutual consultation. However, shura as defined by Islam has nothing to do with selecting a candidate to legislate on your behalf as part of an oligarchical scheme. Shura is a council of reputable people who come together to make decisions based on the Qur’an and Sunna, it has nothing to do with this.
Others will argue that it is the “lesser of two evils” and that if we do not vote we risk harm. The concept of maslaha is a qasd shar’i. The maqasid al-shari’a are not sources of Revelation, they are the goals of the pre-existing Wahi. You cannot use maslaha to derive a hukm, only to apply them. If the hukm of an issue is that it is shirk, maslaha cannot make it mubah or mustahabb.
Can Voting Lead to Positive Change?
Furthermore, no positive change has ever come from the democratic process in the United States. All positive change came from outside the system of voting. Outside of the United States, this model has set up entire pseudo-Islamic governments: in Palestine, Al-Jaza’ir, and recently Egypt. None of it has ever been successful. Even the United States is in shambles, how well has democracy worked here?
We must return back to the Qur’an and Sunna and eschew these false models.
Are We Under Duress to Use Democratic Means?
durress
Are Muslims Obligated to Obey the Law of the Land?
duress
i. An Orientalist Pioneer and Deceiver of Muslims
Returning to Orientalism, let us take one quick case study. In his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence Schacht writes,
I fed myself under a deep obligation to the masters of Islamic studies in the last generation. The name of Snouck Hurgronje appears seldom in this book; yet if we now understand the character of Muhammadan Law, it is due to him.
But who was Snouck Hurgronje? An Orientalist whose agenda was to deceive the Muslim masses of Indonesia into accepting the Dutch government’s colonialist exploitation: “Islam is the religion of peace,” he preached, “and the duty of the Muslims according to the Sharfa is to follow the order of the [Dutch] rulers – and not to disobey and commit violence ” 20 Travelling to Makkah to further this mantra, he alleged himself a Muslim to win broader popularity without sacrificing the full scope of his ambitions.Edward Said notes the “close cooperation between scholarship and direct military colonial conquest” inherent in “the case of the revered Dutch Orientalist C. Snouck Hurgronje, who used the confidence he had won from Muslims to plan and execute the brutal Dutch war against the Atjeyhnese people of Sumatra.”
And after all this he is considered a Western pioneer of Islamic Law. The point is clear. While those accused of unfavourable remarks towards Judaism are roundly denounced, ostracised and dismissed, the very members of Jewish intelligentsia who condemn Strugnell’s prejudices are them¬ selves apathetic to Israeli bigotry against Muslim culture and Muslim artefacts. Meanwhile the far greater prejudice of Hurgronje and a host of other colonialist agents and clergymen – manifesting itself not simply in words, but in deception and direct military subjugation — is casually overlooked, and their status in Western spheres as ‘Orientalist pioneers remains untouched. “
Scholarly Views on Democracy
Ismail Moosa (Hanafi Deobandi)
So there is no doubt that the democratic system is incorrect and un-Islamic.
Salih al-Munajjid (Salafi)
Democracy is a system that is contrary to Islam, because it gives the power of legislation to the people or to those who represent them (such as members of Parliament). Based on that, in democracy legislative authority is given to someone other than Allah, may He be exalted; rather it is given to the people and their deputies, and what matters is not their consensus but the majority.
Maliki
Shafi’i