Islamic Democracy and Human Rights

Abstract

This article deals with the basic doctrines of government and politics that were developed during the history of classical and medieval Islam. It aims to elaborate and develop those basic principles that are not contradictory to, and include the seeds of, modern liberal democracy and pluralism, though they have followed different historical paths. These principles include two sets of notions: first, political contract and consensus, and second, tolerance of differences, plu ralism and opposition. Here I aim to both highlight, when possible, and con struct, when necessary, the important ideological and religious arguments on democracy and pluralism that have been under development in modern Islamic political discourses.1 Such arguments can be used in the progressive interpreta tions of Islam vis-vis reactionary and conservative interpretation. For from an historical perspective, progressive interpretations of Islam can be supported by finding the means and ways for the democratization and liberalization of Islamic thought. The article selectively uses the historically developed religious and political formations, especially, those of the period of the governments of the Prophet and the rightly guided Caliphate. This period is seen as formative and constitu tive in the making of Islamic thought because of its distinctive religious and po litical impact on the minds of almost all Muslims. Most Muslim thinkers, phi losophers, jurists, ideologists, and historians employ it to justify one ideology and understanding or another. Because of the importance of that period in validating any Islamic notion or system or, more importantly, in the making of a notion or system Islamic, this study also uses examples from different historical periods. Thus, these periods represent moments of historical practices and interpretations that moved closer or away from the original ideals developed from the first model of the prophet and the rightly guided Caliphate. It is the argument of this article that the notions of democracy and pluralism are not only in harmony with Islamic thought, but that the seeds of these no tions are embodied in many notions of government and politics of Islamic po