Is it possible to be Democratic and yet adhere to Islamic Law?

[Toots]

I do not believe it is. To me Democratic means to have a choice and vote on it. Islamic Law is non-negotionable. It is one thing to do so in your private life but to have Islamic Law enshrined into the Constitution is not Democratic and that makes Bush* once more a LIAR.

[Mr_Spock]

1. We'll find out I guess

I dunno :shrug:

[dogday]

2. When your religion restricts your freedoms

it is not Democratic and we should be raising hell for the women over there. They are taking steps backward instead of forward....

[Boredtodeath]

3. No, of course not.

Was it possible to be democratic and allow men to own slaves? Of course it wasn't - hence the civil war.

It's not possible to be democratic and allow Muslim men to own their wives and daughters, either.

And it will end the same way.

[eallen]

4. In my view, freedom of thought and speech are prerequisites to democracy.

[jobycom]

5. Sure, why not?

Our Constitution restricts what laws we can vote on. Democracy has to happen within a framework of laws. Why not base it on Islamic law?

There's nothing monolithic about Islamic law. There are hundreds or thousands of different schools of interpretation of Shari'a, ranging from very liberal to very conservative. Like Christianity, the law is broad enough that people can pick and choose what they want to emphasis or believe, within certain boundaries. All democracies have those boundaries. Our democracy emphasizes certain freedoms, as well as certain responsibilities. A democracy based on Islamic law would emphasize different freedoms and responsibilities, and might not be to our taste, but it would still be a Democracy.

I'm not saying Iraq has it right, I'm just saying it's possible.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. That assumes that everyone in the state is Muslim.

Are atheists and christians and what-not supposed to pray five times a day? Is it permissable to beat non-Muslim women for being improperly covered? By Sharia law, yes. That doesn't sound democratic to me.

Democracy protects the minorities, so that individuals of the minority populations have the same rights as those in the majority. Allowing the majority to dictate to the minority is not democracy but mobocracy.

[PsychoDad]

9. You may want to read the proposed Iraqi constitution.

Article 7.

A) Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation. No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law may be enacted during the transitional period. This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice.

IIRC, Ireland recognizes catholicism as the state religion, yet I have not heard that country refereed to as a theocracy where democracy is impossible.

Article 12.

All Iraqis are equal in their rights without regard to gender, sect, opinion, belief, nationality, religion, or origin, and they are equal before the law. Discrimination against an Iraqi citizen on the basis of his gender, nationality, religion, or origin is prohibited. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of his person. No one may be deprived of his life or liberty, except in accordance with legal procedures. All are equal before the courts.

Article 13.

(A) Public and private freedoms shall be protected.

(B) The right of free expression shall be protected.

(C) The right of free peaceable assembly and the right to join associations freely, as well as the right to form and join unions and political parties freely, in accordance with the law, shall be guaranteed.

(D) Each Iraqi has the right of free movement in all parts of Iraq and the right to travel abroad and return freely.

(E) Each Iraqi has the right to demonstrate and strike peaceably in accordance with the law.

(F) Each Iraqi has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice. Coercion in such matters shall be prohibited.

(G) Slavery, the slave trade, forced labor, and involuntary servitude with or without pay, shall be forbidden.

(H) Each Iraqi has the right to privacy.


Freedom of expression, conscience, creed, association and privacy. Islamic values.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. That sounds good, and best of luck with it,

but a constitution is only as good as its observance. The soviets had a great constitution, in theory, which was recognized in the breach more than the application.

My problem is not with Islam, but with any state religion.

"Freedom of expression, conscience, creed, association and privacy." Those are human values, shared by most people around the world, and restricted by most religions around the world. They may be promulgated by Islam, but at the same time adulterers are stoned and heretics are beheaded by Islamic fundamentalists who have to power to do so. I have no problem with claims that a religion is "A" source of legislation -- but eventually, if there is a state religion, it becomes "the" source.

Your example of Ireland is particularly apt - the claim of Roman Catholicism as its state religion was in response to the occupiers' claim of the Church of England as the state religion, and the competition between the two state religions resulted in bitterness and bloodshed for three hundred and fifty years, even into the years when both Ireland and England accepted democracy. And, btw, the protestants in Northern Ireland regularly referred to Eire as a 'Papist' state, meaning ruled by the Pope, meaning, a theocracy. While largely untrue, the local priests did often hold greater authority than any of the elected officials. How that has changed in the last two decades, I couldn't say.

That's why I object when people say that the US is a christian country, founded on biblical principles and the ten commandments - while ignoring the vast background of English common law, Roman jurisprudence, French enlightenment and ancient Greek philosophy. When you have a state religion, opposing that religion means you are opposing the state, and visa versa. Heresy and treason become intertwined. That can never be good.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. This might be part of the proposed constitution but

so far, by all accounts, the Sunnis are not to pleased with this. Do you have a link?

[jobycom]

12. Does no such thing

Democracy doesn't mean everyone gets to vote, nor does it mean that everyone has equal rights, nor does it mean minorities are protected. The ancient Greeks equated "democracy" with "mobacracy" because they assumed the minority would be beat up on. Your confusing democracy with American rights. They aren't the same thing. They weren't the same thing in our Constitution, even. Equality, universal sufferage, etc, are rights we put in our Constitution, but they are not absolutely part of Democracy. Not to mention they reflect our culture, not everyone's.

We just are so sure of ourselves that we assume everyone has to do like us. It's okay to force vague citizenship requirements on people to allow them to vote. There are no movements afoot to allow illegal immigrants to vote, nor resident aliens, nor in some places even fellons. People under 18 aren't allowed to vote. The number of people of voting age in America who are actually allowed to vote has been declining since the sixties--some people misinterpret those figures to mean that the number of eligible voters who vote is declining, but that's not the case. But when other nations put different requirements on their people, we flip. Theirs are based on gender, ours are based on race and country of origin and accidents of birth, but ours are right and just and make sense, but other cultures are not, because they differ from ours.

Our own Constitution only allowed about ten percent of Americans to vote at first. Basically, white male property-holders. We fixed that over time, to the degree it has been fixed.

So, a Muslum nation that wants to follow Islamic law and have a democracy could do it, and that was the original question. It may not look the way we want it to look, but ours doesn't look the way they want ours to look, either. Maybe over time it would become more egalitarian. Islam is an egalitarian religion.

This has nothing to do with Iraq, this is just an answer to a hypothetical question.

And for the record, no, atheists and Christians are not required to pray five times a day under the Shari'a, and whether it's permissable to beat women, muslim or non, for not being properly covered would be settled be the government. There are many interpretations of Muslim law, and not all of them require a Muslim man to begin whacking a woman with a stick for not being covered. Western stereotypes of Islam these days are as bad as the stereotypes of Native Americans a century ago.

[asjr]

6. It will be interesting to know how the Right Fundamentalists

react to Iraq having an Islamic based government. They were and are so much in favor of invading a secular Iraq.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. It is perfectly possible for an Islamic person to live in a secular,

democratic state. Such a state allows the latitude to accomodate the person's beliefs.

It is not possible for a secular, democratic person to live in an Islamic state. Sharia law does not allow for secularism, and forces the person to abide by religious laws that are meaningless to a secular person.

You may, if you wish, substitute 'Christian' and 'Mosaic' for 'Islamic' and 'Sharia'.

[Walt Starr]

13. It is impossible for any government based upon religious dogma

to be democratic.