Is Islam Compatible With Democracy? 3 страница

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross[48] states that “Though official proceedings against those who reject Islam are fairly rare - in part, no doubt, because most keep their conversion a closely held secret - apostasy is punishable by death in Afghanistan, Comoros, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. It is also illegal in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman, and Qatar. (…) The greatest threat to apostates in the Muslim world derives not from the state, however, but from private individuals who take punishment into their own hands. In Bangladesh, for example, a native-born Muslim-turned-Christian evangelist was stabbed to death in the spring of 2003 while returning home from a film version of the Gospel of Luke. As another Bangladeshi apostate told the U.S. Newswire, ‘If a Muslim converts to Christianity, now he cannot live in this country. It is not safe. The fundamentalism is increasing more and more.’”

In Britain in 2004, Prince Charles[49] brokered efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths by holding a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders. The Muslim group cautioned the prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue. A member of the Christian group said that he was “very, very unhappy” about the outcome. Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of the Barnabas Fund which campaigns on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, urged the prince and Muslim leaders in Britain to criticise openly the traditional Islamic law on apostasy, calling for it to be abolished throughout the world. According to Sookhdeo, “one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.”

In the London Times, Anthony Browne[50] wrote about Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, one of a growing number of former Muslims in the West who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith. Mr Hussein told “It’s been absolutely appalling. This is England - where I was born and raised. You would never imagine Christians would suffer in such a way.” The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area.

Anwar Sheikh, a former mosque teacher from Pakistan, became an atheist after coming to Britain, and lived with a special alarm in his house in Cardiff after criticising Islam in a series of hardline books. “I’ve had 18 fatwas against me. They telephone me - they aren’t foolhardy enough to put it in writing. I had a call a couple of weeks ago. They mean repent or be hanged, ” he said. “What I have written, I believe and I will not take it back. I will suffer the consequences. If that is the price, I will pay it.” Anwar Sheikh died peacefully in his home in Wales in November 2006.

Aluma Dankowitz[51], director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Reform Project, writes about how the accusation against Muslims - particularly intellectuals, artists, and writers - of “unbelief” (an accusation known as “takfir”) recurs in the Muslim world. The traditional punishment for an apostate (murtadd) is capital punishment, which was implemented on a large scale in the period following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, when Muhammad’s successor Abu Bakr fought the ridda wars against the tribes that abandoned Islam.

Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, one of the most prominent clerics in Sunni Islam today, draws a distinction between two types of apostasy (ridda): “Limited ridda is the ridda of the individual who switches religion and is not interested in others. According to Islam, the punishment for this individual is [Hell] in the world to come. But [the other] ridda, which expands [from the individual to the group], is a ridda in which the individual who abandons Islam calls [upon others] to do likewise, [thus creating] a group whose path is not the path of society and whose goal is not the goal of the [Muslim] nation, and whose allegiance is not to the Islamic nation. Such [individuals] endanger the social fabric, and they are like the murtaddoon [apostates], who were fought by [the first Caliph] Abu Bakr together with the Companions of the Prophet.”

In other words, those who publicly leave Islam constitute a threat to the morale of the Islamic community, just like soldiers defecting from an army, and must thus be punished before a mass-defection sets in. Al-Qaradhawi agrees with the traditional treatment of Muslims who leave their religion: “For Muslim society to preserve its existence, it must struggle against ridda from every source and in all forms, and it must not let it spread like wildfire in a field of thorns. Thus, the Muslim sages agreed that the punishment for the murtadd [who commits ridda] is execution.”

There is enormous social pressure in Muslim countries against expressing any kind of doubts about the Islamic religion. Razi Azmi[52], one of the more sensible columnists of Pakistan’s Daily Times Online newspaper, has mentioned the issue in an op-ed:

“For a moment, let us imagine a reverse scenario, a Muslim converting, say, to Christianity or, Heaven forbid, Hinduism or Buddhism, in a Muslim country. It defies imagination. There is unanimity among clerics from the various Islamic schools of thought that the penalty for an apostate (murtid) is death, the only disagreement being whether the execution should occur instantly or after the murtid has been given an opportunity to recant and return to the fold of Islam. So sure is the punishment and so strong the attendant social and family pressures that it is unthinkable for Muslims ever to openly question any aspect of their religion, let alone convert to another or to practice agnosticism or atheism.”

Islam’s hostility towards freedom of speech does not apply only to Muslims, but to anybody saying anything remotely critical of Islam, including non-Muslims. Muslims are already busy trying to shut down freedom of speech in Western nations through legal harassment and, increasingly, physical intimidation.

Mohammed Bouyeri[53], born in Amsterdam of Moroccan Berber parents, murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had recently made a film critical of Islam together with the Dutch-Somali former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the morning of Nov. 2, 2004. As Mr. van Gogh cycled to work in Amsterdam, the bearded young man in a long Middle-Eastern-style shirt fired at him with a handgun, chased him, shot him once more, slit his throat from ear to ear and plunged two knives, one with a five-page letter attached, into the body. “I did what I did purely out my beliefs, ” Bouyeri told judges while clutching a Koran, because he believed van Gogh insulted Islam.

Orientalist Hans Jansen[54] of Leiden University in The Netherlands has written an analysis of the letter[55] which Mohammed Bouyeri left on the body of Theo van Gogh. As he points out, “MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (or any other MP) is not eager to die for her membership of Parliament. Muslims such as Mohammed B. on the other hand are eager to shed their life for what they view as the good cause, which possibly gives Islam a tactical - strategic advantage in conflicts with others. That those who do not believe in heavenly compensation of martyrdom rather not become martyrs is a true statement and certainly relevant in Islam’s fight against the non-Muslims.”

A study from 2006[56] found that forty percent of the Moroccan youth in the Netherlands rejected Western values and democracy. Six to seven percent were prepared to use force to defend Islam. The majority were opposed to freedom of speech for offensive statements, particularly criticism of Islam. Similar numbers could no doubt be found among Muslims in other Western countries.

This kind of intimidation has taken its toll. In November 2006, publisher Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the book the Army of the Pure [57] after booksellers said they would not stock the adventure thriller for youngsters because the “baddie” was a Muslim terrorist. Because two characters were Arabic-speaking and the plot involves a mujaheddin extremist group, Scholastic’s decision was based “100 per cent (on) the Muslim issue.”

This decision was at odds with the publication of Richard Flanagan’s bestselling The Unknown Terrorist and Andrew McGahan’s Underground in which terrorists are portrayed as victims driven to extreme acts by the failings of the West. The Unknown Terrorist describes Jesus Christ as “history’s first... suicide bomber.” In McGahan’s Underground, Muslims are executed or herded into ghettos in an Australia rendered unrecognisable by the war on terror.

The Syrian-born poet Ali Ahmad Sa’id, known by his pseudonym Adonis[58], says that “If the Arabs are so inept that they cannot be democratic by themselves, they can never be democratic through the intervention of others. If we want to be democratic, we must be so by ourselves.”

According to Adonis, the underlying structure of Arab societies is a structure of slavery, not of liberty: “Some human beings are afraid of freedom. When you are free, you have to face reality, the world in its entirety. You have to deal with the world’s problems, with everything. On the other hand, if we are slaves, we can be content and not have to deal with anything. Just as Allah solves all our problems, the dictator will solve all our problems.”

This is undoubtedly true, and this fear of freedom is not exclusive to Muslims. As philosopher Eric Hoffer writes in The True Believer:

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration. (…) We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, ‘to be free from freedom.’ It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility? ”

According to Adonis, “The Muslims today - forgive me for saying this - with their accepted interpretation [of the religious text], are the first to destroy Islam, whereas those who criticise the Muslims - the non-believers, the infidels, as they call them - are the ones who perceive in Islam the vitality that could adapt it to life. These infidels serve Islam better than the believers.”

I’m not sure I agree with that. Although fear of freedom may be a universal human trait, it does seem to be more prevalent in Islamic societies than in others. Does this “slave mentality” that Mr. Adonis complains about partly originate from Islam itself?

Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), the “Greatest Sufi Master, ” defined hurriyya, freedom, as “perfect slavery” to Allah. The mainstream Islamic website Islam Q & A[59] defines the meaning of enslavement in Islam:

“If by ‘slave’ I mean al-’aabid, one who worships Allaah and obeys His commands, this meaning applies specifically to the believers to the exclusion of the kaafireen [infidels], because the believers are the true slaves of Allaah who attribute Lordship and Divinity to Him Alone and recognise Him by His Names and Attributes, and do not associate anything with Him. Enslavement to Allaah is an honour, not a cause of humiliation. We ask Allaah to make us among His righteous slaves.”

If Muslims are “slaves of Allah, ” it is tempting to view ex-Muslims as runaway slaves, who are to be hunted down and punished for their desire for freedom, just as real slaves were in the old days.

Dr. Younus Shaikh[60], Pakistani Rationalist and the founder President of the Rationalist organisation of Pakistan, was once sentenced for blasphemy, a crime that leads to a mandatory death sentence in Pakistan, for claiming that Muhammad did not become a Muslim until the age of 40 and received his first revelations in 610, and that his parents were non-Muslims because they died before Islam existed. He was later acquitted following international pressure, and now lives in exile in Switzerland.

According to Dr. Shaikh, “Islam is an organised crime against humanity! ” Those may be harsh words, but it should be his right to say it. As Mr. Adonis states, “There can be no living culture in the world if you cannot criticise its foundations - the religion.” This means that Muslims must first accept criticism of their religion before they can have any hope of establishing free societies.

Freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental of all freedoms; it is necessary for a functioning democratic society. The Islamic world will never know true liberty until Muslim individuals may openly criticise their religion and even leave it without having to fear for their lives. This freedom must be established not just in Switzerland or the United States, but in Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. That vision of liberty so far remains a mirage in the distance.

Trying to prove that Islam is compatible with democracy, many Muslims are forced to twist existing Islamic concepts so that they cease to retain their original meaning. What remains can hardly be justified from a straight-forward reading of the Koran or the hadith.

Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Ash-Shinqiti[61], director of the Islamic Center in Texas, states: “Another important value is checks and balances by which powers are distributed and separated in a way that achieves independence of each power and the ability to check and correct each other. In Qur’anic terminology, this is called al-mudafa’ah, which is a very important Islamic concept that protects the society against corruption. Almighty Allah says, ‘Had not Allah checked one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief.’” (The Koran, 2: 251).”

But this idea of setting one group of people against another bears little relation to the Western concept of formal checks and balances as enshrined in the US Constitution. Protection against “corruption” in this context means excluding non-Islamic influences, not preventing the abuse of power.

Another such concept is shura, usually translated as “consultation, ” which is found in the Koran 42: 38, “...who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation...” and “… consult them in affairs (of moment)..., ” 3: 159. According to Ja’far Sheikh Idris[62], professor of Islamic studies in Washington, “broadly understood, democracy is almost identical with Shura. ”

However, shura has never been formalised. The most authoritarian and brutal of rulers, such as Stalin or Mao, probably “consulted” somebody every now and then. Even Genghis Khan “consulted” someone as he massacred half of Asia. Thus, “consultation” by itself is meaningless. As long as there are not formal constraints on the ruler forcing him to take the good of the people into account, and as long as real sanctions are not in place if he fails to do so, “consultation” is empty rhetoric.

Sunni Muslims talk about the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib, all of whom had known Muhammad personally. Their rule ended with the murder of Ali in 661. Then the nominal leadership of Islam was transferred from Medina to the Umayyid dynasty in Damascus. In 750 the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad assumed the Caliphate, where it endured until 1258, when the Mongols sacked Baghdad. The Caliphate as a concept still persisted for centuries, although the Caliphs usually possessed no practical power. Finally, even the concept itself was formally abolished in 1924 by the Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Atatü rk.

In an essay in newspaper The Guardian[63], spokesman Osama Saeed from the Muslim Association of Britain advocated recreating the institution, claiming that a “restored caliphate is entirely compatible” with democratically accountable institutions:

“The vision of any kind of new caliphate, shared by Muslims worldwide, is a distant one. Right now, even talk of bringing down trade barriers and free flow of people across Muslim states seems radical. But it is a vision that is needed, and one that should actually be supported by the US and Britain if they are sincere about the development of the Muslim world. The revival of a strong Muslim civilisation would be for the betterment of the whole world.”

Irfan Husain[64] countered Saeed’s essay in Pakistani newspaper Dawn. He pointed out some glaring omissions:

“For starters, who would decide on a suitable candidate? What does an Indonesian have in common with a Turk, apart from faith? The truth is that religion is only one aspect of an individual’s identity. Other equally important factors include language, ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, and a whole slew of layers that compose identity. To assume that just because somebody is born a Muslim, he will automatically obey a distant figure who calls himself the caliph is to ignore just how tenuous the authority of most of the past caliphs actually was.”

The Christian Science Monitor [65] interviewed a group of followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, in Jordan. They say that a single Islamic state from Indonesia to Morocco will bring prosperity and let Muslims conquer the West. “Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate - I would not say terrorise - the enemies of Islam, ” says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist. “And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam, ” he says, smiling. “This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light.”

One of the speakers, Ashraf Doureihi, at a conference in Sydney, Australia[66], in January 2007, stressed the importance of establishing an Islamic state:

“It is important... [to move] collectively in the Muslim world to demand this change from such influential people in our lands, even if it means spilling onto the streets to create a revolution or staging a military coup, ” he said. According to Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Wasim Durie, the conference would discuss ways of establishing an Islamic superstate. “As we were here today, what is at stake is not just the destiny of the Muslim world but indeed the whole of mankind, ” he said. Despite open calls for civil war, the Australian Government refused to ban[67] the group.

It is easy to dismiss these ideas as marginal, but, as Robert Spencer[68] warns, even if there is no chance of establishing a worldwide caliphate, that doesn’t mean that these groups aren’t dangerous:

“As if the fact that the Soviet Union had no chance of making the world communist means that it wasn’t a threat as it attempted to do so. These learned heads seem to have no regard at all for the fact that as Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups try to establish a worldwide caliphate, they are capable of causing immense, catastrophic havoc. The fact that their goals are unattainable doesn’t mean they can’t do anything at all.”

Author Abid Ullah Jan’s book, The End of Democracy, has become highly popular in Islamic circles. Jan quotes an 11th century Iraqi jurist, al-Mawardi - whose works on governance are considered classics in the field - regarding the duties of the Caliph (page 189):

“According to Al-Mawardi, the duties of the Khalifah are, that he should guard the religion of Islam and suppress the growth of heresy; that he should interpret Islamic law as Mujtahid and promulgate it; that he should keep armies on the frontiers in order to defend Islamic territories from aggression by an enemy; that he should champion the cause of Islam either by offering Islam to the non-Muslims of the adjoining countries or by waging war against them until they accept the status of protected people [dhimmis]; that he should execute and preserve justice; that he should implement a sound financial system; that he should appoint only competent ministers, governors, tax-collectors, judges and other State officials and fix their salaries from the State treasury; and lastly, that he should supervise all the departments of the State.”

Abid Ullah Jan also quotes the highly influential 20th century theologian Abul A’la Mawdudi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami in today’s Pakistan (page 132):

“The ‘Islamic State seeks to mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral norms and program of social reform. In such a State no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private.’ However, this concept does not make the Islamic State an authoritarian or fascist regime, because ‘despite its all-inclusiveness, it [Islamic State] is something vastly and basically different from the modern totalitarian and authoritarian states.’ Mawdudi further elaborates: ‘Individual liberty is not suppressed under it nor is there any trace of dictatorship in it. It presents the middle course and embodies the best that the human society has ever evolved.’”

According to Jan, “The reason why Muslims are not given a chance to sit peacefully, take time and set an Islamic State is that an Islamic State has the potential to show a real model of a just social order with all the features that the champions of democracy claim but can never present.”

One might argue that it also has to do with the fact that one stated objective of this Islamic superstate, as Jan himself points out, is to kill or subdue all non-Muslims around the world.

In addition, Jan says that there has never been a single approved method for appointing such a Caliph, which he interprets as leaving room for elections (page 191):

“Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by not appointing his successor or suggesting any specific mode or laying down any framework for constituting or deposing such a successor, had acted in conformity with the Qur’an which is silent on this issue.”

However, it is precisely because Muhammad, despite his many wives, never produced a male heir, never appointed a successor, and failed to provide any mechanism for choosing one, that immediate fissures developed among the early Muslims. Some wanted leadership to follow the bloodline of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima’s marriage to Alī bin Abī Tā lib, the father of Muhammad’s male grandchildren Hassan and Husayn. He later became known as the first Imam of the Shi’a Muslims.

Despite all the nice words of modern apologists, it is difficult to view the Caliphate as anything other than a divinely imposed dictatorship. The principle of separation of powers as described by Montesquieu is totally unknown, indeed would be considered heretical. While there may be some dissent regarding the issue, it has been commonly held by Islamic jurists that as long as the ruler does not reject the basic tenets of Islam, he must be obeyed, since even a tyrannical ruler is better than anarchy. Thus he is supposed to “consult” others in the affairs of the state, but he is also free to ignore their advice. One is struck by the primitive nature of Islamic governance.

There will be debates by future historians about how EU leaders could do something as stupid as the creation of the Eurabian networks. One of the answers will have to be: They did it because they could.

I have heard some Socialists argue that the Communist system of the Soviet Union could have worked if they didn’t end up with a leader such as Stalin. This view is fundamentally flawed, for the system itself invited a Stalin, or a Mao; there were no formal restraints on the power of the rulers under Communism. The same principle holds true for the Caliphate. Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The Islamic set-up ensures corruption and the abuse of power.

In 2006, the European Commission[69] (the EU’s government) announced that it would send its proposals for EU laws to national parliaments for comment - but it made clear that Brussels would only “take note” of national parliamentarians’ wishes. The European Union’s concept of “consultation” is thus that the people or their representatives should give their “advice, ” and then the leaders should be free to ignore this advice. Thus the EU will be able to integrate seamlessly into the Caliphate, given that it already operates under some of the same principles.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) quotes Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi[70], a Jordanian intellectual, in criticising Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s claim that “democracy is in the essence of Islam.”

According to Nabulsi, “He is among those who maintain that the Shura is meant to advise the ruler, but does not obligate him. [Al-Qaradhawi holds that] the ruler must not be deposed even if he sins or oppresses, and that ‘the ruler must be obeyed even if he strikes you or expropriates your property.’ The Caliphate has remained unchanged from 632 through 2004 - it has kept its primitive, simple tribal form (the elite’s allegiance to the sovereigns) - an un-democratic structure, despotic, and bloody except for a brief period of 12 years during the rule of Abu Baker and Omar Bin Al-Khattab [the first and second Caliphs]. (...) Since the time of [the Umayyad Caliph] Mu’awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan through the last Ottoman Sultan, (that is from the year 661 through the year 1924), the Islamic Caliphate was drenched with blood, and ruled by fist and sword - and even today the situation is the same in most of the Arab world.”

Nabulsi quotes al-Qaradawi as saying: “‘There are those who maintain that democracy is the rule of the people, but we want the rule of Allah.’ Such ideas] are a call for the Rule of Allah, discussed by Sayyid Qutb in his book ‘The Milestones.’ [Qutb] borrowed this idea from Pakistani intellectual Abu Al-’Ala Al-Mawdudi, who introduced the theory that authority is Allah’s, not the people’s, and that the sovereign is none other than Allah’s secretary and His representative on earth.”

Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with the stated goal of restoring the Caliphate. There are signs that his disciple Yusuf al-Qaradawi, now spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, hasn’t given up this goal. In an interview with German weekly magazine Der Spiegel[71], Qaradawi said: “Islam is a single nation, there is only one Islamic law and we all pray to a single God. Eventually such a nation will also become political reality. But whether that will be a federation of already existing states, a monarchy or an Islamic republic remains to be seen.”

In another essay[72], Al-Qaradawi states that: “Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society. Christianity is devoid of a shari’ah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed.”

In contrast, according to The New Testament, the rule is to: “Render unto Caesar things which belong to Caesar, and render unto God things which belong to God” (Matthew 22: 21).

But, “as Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (’ibadah) and legislation (Shari’ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari’ah, ” and “the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright riddah [apostasy].”

The adoption of secular laws and equality for Muslims and non-Muslims amounts to apostasy. Harsh words from a man who has voiced support for the traditional death penalty for apostates.

The Iranian intellectual Amir Taheri[73] has noted, “There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish. It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle’s Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle’s Politics in Persian until 1963.”

According to Taheri, one of the key stumbling blocks is equality: “The idea is unacceptable to Islam, for the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.”

“Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty. In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l’illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God. But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God. (...) There is consultation in Islam. But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.”