Democracy and Islamic law

Luxor has both Christian and Moslem communities and the politics of the Middle East are equally diverse. Air your views on the situation.

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Bombay
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Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Bombay »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23810527

Roger Scruton is a writer and philosopher
A Point of View is usually broadcast on Fridays on Radio 4 at 20:50 BST and repeated Sundays, 08:50 BST
In his four-week stint, he considers the nature and limits of democracy:


Should a nation be defined by language and territory, by ruling party or by faith, asks Roger Scruton.

To understand what is happening in the Middle East today we must look back to the end of World War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been destroyed, and from the ruins emerged a collection of nation states.

These nation states - including Austria, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia - were not arbitrary creations. Their boundaries reflected long-standing divisions of language, religion, culture and ethnicity. And although the whole arrangement collapsed within two decades, this was in part because of the rise of Nazism and communism, both ideologies of conquest.

Today we take the nation states of central Europe for granted. They are settled political entities, each with a government elected by the citizens who live on its soil.

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, so too did the Ottoman Empire, whose territories embraced the whole of the Middle East and North Africa.

Why it can be good to give in to enemies
Is democracy overrated?

The victorious allies divided up the Ottoman Empire into small territorial states. But very few of these have enjoyed more than a temporary spasm of democracy. Many have been governed by clans, sects, families or the military, usually assisted, as in Syria, by the violent suppression of every group that challenges the ruling power.

People often explain the relative absence of democracy in the Middle East by arguing that the carving up of the region into territories bears no relation to the pre-existing loyalties of the people.

In a few cases it worked. Ataturk, general of the Turkish army, was able to defend the Turkish-speaking heart of the empire and turn it into a modern state on the European model. Elsewhere, many people identified themselves primarily in religious rather than national terms. Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, told his followers that bringing together the world's Muslims in a supra-national Islamic State, a Caliphate, should be a top priority.

The result of imposing national boundaries on people who define themselves in religious terms is the kind of chaos we have witnessed in Iraq, where Sunni and Shia fight for dominance, or the even greater chaos that we now witness in Syria, where a minority Islamic sect, the Alawites, has maintained a monopoly of social power since the rise of the Assad family.

Iraqi men wearing labels in Arabic to identify their different ethnic and religious affiliations, June 2013
Prayers against divisions in Iraq - the shirts read (from right), Kurdish, Yazidi, Turkmen, Shia, Sunni, Christian
By contrast Europeans are more inclined to define ourselves in national terms. In any conflict it is the nation that must be defended. And if God once ordered otherwise, then it is time he changed his mind. Such an idea is anathema to Islam, which is based on the belief that God has laid down an eternal law and it is up to us to submit to it: that is what the word Islam means: submission.

Sunni Islam was the official faith of the Ottomans, and no other form of Islam was formally recognised. Toleration was extended to the various Christian sects, to Zoroastrians and to Jews. But the official story over several centuries was that the empire was ruled by Sharia, the holy law of Islam, augmented by a civil code and by the domestic law of the various permitted sects.

Ataturk abolished the Sultanate and established a new civil code, based on European precedents. And he drew up a constitution that expressly severed all connection with Islamic law, forbade Islamic forms of dress, outlawed polygamy, imposed a secular system of education, and enjoined allegiance to the Turkish homeland as the primary duty of every Turk. In any crisis, when loyalty is at stake, you are to identify yourself first of all as a Turk, and only then as a Muslim. And he allowed the sale of alcohol, so that the Turkish people could drink to their new condition in the way that he preferred.

Ataturk remade Turkey as a comparatively open and prosperous country that could turn a proud face to the modern world. For he made it into a nation, defined by language and territory rather than by party or faith. Universal adult suffrage for both sexes was introduced into Turkey in 1933. And the country continues to be governed by a legal system that derives its authority from human legislators rather than divine revelation.

Anti-government protester with Turkish flag with portrait of Ataturk
A portrait of Ataturk - founder of modern Turkey - decorates this protester's flag
At the same time its population is almost entirely Muslim, and experiences the inevitable nostalgia for the pure and beautiful way of life invoked in the Koran. There is therefore tension between the secular state and the religious feelings of the people.

Ataturk was aware of this tension, and appointed the army as the guardian of the Secular Constitution. He imposed a system of education for army officers that would make them instinctive opponents of the obscurantism of the clerics. The army was to be the advocate of progress and modernity, which would place patriotism above piety in the hearts of the people.

In obedience to its appointed role, the Turkish army has several times stepped in to uphold Ataturk's vision. It took over in 1980, when the Soviet Union was actively trying to subvert Turkish democracy and nationalists and leftists were fighting it out in the streets. The army has also made its presence felt in recent years, when the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has taken a step back towards the old Islamic values.

Erdogan gestures as he gives a speech under a Turkish flag and portraits of himself and Ataturk
Erdogan, with portraits of himself and Ataturk as backdrop
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party is nominally secular. But he is a man of the people and a sincere Muslim, who believes that the Koran contains the divinely inspired and uniquely valid guide to human life. He is not happy with a constitution that puts patriotism above piety, and which makes the army, rather than the mosque, into the guardian of social order. He has put a large number of leading army officers on trial on charges of subversion, some of them now jailed for life.

The trials have been denounced as a travesty of justice; but those who say this are likely to be accused of subversion themselves. Journalists opposed to Erdogan's policies have a remarkable tendency to end up in jail. Newspapers that criticise the prime minister find themselves suddenly confronted with crippling tax demands or massive fines. And popular protests are put down with whatever force may be required. In Turkey, opposition is now becoming dangerous.

The Turkish case vividly illustrates the point that democracy, freedom and human rights are not one thing but three. Erdogan has a large following. He has three times won an election with a substantial majority. But the elementary freedoms that we take for granted have been rather jeopardised than enhanced by this.

The Egyptian example is even more pertinent. The Muslim Brotherhood has always sought to be a mass movement, seeking to establish itself by popular support. But its most influential leader, Sayyid Qutb, denounced the whole idea of the secular state as a kind of blasphemy, an attempt to usurp the will of God by passing laws that have a merely human authority. Qutb was executed by President Nasser, who came to power in a military coup.

And ever since then the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army have played against each other. The Brotherhood aims for a populist government and won an election that it took to authorise the remaking of Egypt as an Islamic Republic. The posters waved by Morsi's supporters did not advocate democracy or human rights. They said: "All of us are with the Sharia." The army replied by saying no, only some of us are.

Tank outside Egypt's constitutional court
So why cannot a modern state govern itself by Islamic law? This is a controversial issue about which there are many learned views.

Here, for what it is worth, is mine. The original schools of Islamic jurisprudence, which arose in the wake of the Prophet's reign in Medina, permitted jurists to adapt the law to the changing needs of society, by a process of reflection known as ijtihad, or effort. But this seems to have been brought to an end during the 8th Century, when it was maintained by the then dominant theological school that all important matters had been settled and that the "gate of ijtihad is closed".

Trying to introduce Sharia today therefore runs the risk of imposing on people a system of law designed for the government of a long since vanished community and unable to adapt to the changing circumstances of human life. To put the point in a nutshell - secular law adapts, religious law merely endures.

Moreover, precisely because Sharia has not adapted, nobody really knows what it says. Does it tell us to stone adulterers to death? Some say yes, some say no. Does it tell us that investing money at interest is in every case forbidden? Some say yes, some say no.

When God makes the laws, the laws become as mysterious as God is. When we make the laws, and make them for our purposes, we can be certain what they mean. The only question then is "who are we?" What way of defining ourselves reconciles democratic elections with real opposition and individual rights? That, to my mind, is the most important question facing the West today. It is important because, as I shall argue next week, we too are giving the wrong answer.


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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Bombay »

Sorry Brian if you follow the link as described you can look at the pictures :br
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Dusak »

Yes Bombay, this is far, far too long for Mr. Yare. Perhaps if you had put it on 36 different posts he would of read it. Although, for him, his post on his sons allergies was quite long. I think ST has an allergy towards me. But perhaps that's not a [rash on al] thought to have.
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by carrie »

I listened to the broadcast and found it very very interesting especially the part where he said that Sharia law was not originally set in stone but was meant to change and adapt to current circumstances.
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Dusak »

One of my main disappointments in life over here is that I have never been able to successfully open a radio 4 link. In the UK I had it playing for many hours each day as I worked. For me it offered a perfect balance of light entertainment and topics of interest. :cry:
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Brian Yare »

Dusak wrote:Yes Bombay, this is far, far too long for Mr. Yare.
It was split into manageable paragraphs. But was it worth reading?
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Remus »

' I have never been able to successfully open a radio 4 link'
says Dusak.
But you can do it from the top of this page for 'live' programmes ('Radio')

Or through the BBC website ....

Roger Scruton was once called 'the cleverest man in England'. Very keen
on foxhunting (sorry FabLux).
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by carrie »

I have it on all day when I'm in and listen to the cricket on Radio 5, always through the link on Luxor4u, the other sites are always buffering. Thanks to Keefy.
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Dusak »

I've tried several times using this sites link but would never work. I will try again after this and it will probably work this time knowing my luck! Typical, worked first time this time, all I can think of is that it was the old system of the VLC player I had as I only uploaded the update a couple of weeks ago. This means that I will be on L4U 24/7 now. :up
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Re: Democracy and Islamic law

Post by Hafiz »

Scrutton is regarded as an extreme right wing libertarian with some very extreme views on sexuality.

His theme that Europeans define them selves by nationality/the state ignores that Greeks define themselves by religion which allows them the discriminate against Greek Muslims. Polish Catholic xenophobia works the same way. Ireland used to be the same until recently and Belgium is split into mutually hostile religious regions. Irish laws on abortion famously impose a catholic law on everyone. The former Yugoslavia has split along religious lines after decades of forced unity. The west is not as secular as he thinks. Another example is Italy where divorce and abortion follow the Vatican line. Although its a bit in the past, Catholics suffered terrible legal discrimination under English rule. More recently Tony Blair was counseled by the Catholic primate to not convert to Catholicism whilst in power for fear of a backlash against Catholics.

His praise of (relatively) secular Turkey ignores the fact that this was imposed by force by 60 years of military dictatorship and has (following the suppression of the military in politics) been on the decline and reverting to a more Islamist society in the past decade.

His view about sharia and the secular state ignores successful liberal Muslim states like Indonesia, Malaysia and Azerbaijan each of which has a reasonable democracy. Morocco and Jordan have relatively liberal Muslim kingship's.

I think that he paints the Muslim case too darkly and ignores the religious rifts that continue in Europe.
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