Human Rights and Democracy in Islam

Abstract

This chapter explores the connection between Islam, democracy, and human rights in theory and practice. The idea of shari`a, or divine law, remains a touchstone in internal Muslim debates about human rights. For most of Islamic history, shari`a has served not as a basis for theocracy, but rather as a religious and moral frame of reference for secular authorities to both respect and protect. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, serves to illustrate some of the ambiguities at the intersection of Islam and human rights in practice. Since the revolution of 1998, the country has seen a successful democratic experiment and the institutionalization of human rights to an unprecedented degree in its history. Within this context, education policy has emerged as a particular area of contestation. The chapter traces the evolution of government-supported efforts of the State Islamic Colleges to develop programs for civic education designed to deepen Muslims’ commitment to democracy and human rights. The results of a survey of educators show overwhelming support both for democracy and human rights, on the one hand, and for shari`a, on the other. It is argued that this dual affirmation is not a contradiction, but a sincere effort to maintain and combine two sets of deeply held value commitments. Low levels of support for Islamist parties suggest space for religion in public life short of full-scale Islamization. The chapter concludes that rather than rushing to support programs for far-reaching legal and political change, most voters hedge their bets, deferring until some later moment the question of just how to accommodate God's law in a democratic state.