Islam and Democracy الإسلام والديمقراطية

الإسلام والديمقراطية

Islam and Democracy

How can Muslim clerics claim that democracy is anti-Islamic? This is true neither in the spirit or in the letter of the law.

Amongst the bedouin, sheikhs are generally elected; the sheikh keeps his tent open to the poorest petitioner. During his many consultations, he will often ask for a show of hands. The first rashidun (rightly-guided) kaliphs – Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali – were all elected by the ulema. Muhammad must have told them to do that before he died, for he often used consultative assemblies in Medina, which included Christians and Jews from some three tribes, and sometimes both men and women. The ulema are the learned elders of the community. Muhammad commissioned no clergy. He also said: “Government must consult with the people at every step.” Finally, his laws promulgated in Medina gave basic rights to the weakest - for captured prisoners, women, orphans, travelers and non-Muslims. These laws of course are often violated.

The roots of law in the Middle East go back to the Neolithic, when farming and sheherding communities learned to coexist and prosper. Each produced what the other needed, and long-distance trade required such cooperation. Civilization was to grow out of this. Nomads were instrumental in most empires right down to the Ottomans. The rifle ended that. But the bedouin still ruled outside the habitable zones. Urban rule usually did not extend outside a city's walls.

Westerners err in thinking that the shari'a represents authoritarian thinking. Hardy. The early jurists - Malik, Numa (Abu Hanifa), Ash Shafi'i and ibn Hanbal were all persecuted by the Abbasid authorities, because they would not use the law for political purposes, to harm people.

Scroll back to three issues and you'll find a list of seven steps, from ceasefire to election, which charts the progress of a successful revolution. Note the inner search stage, where all the law codes are laid out, all the constitutions, then assessed and assembled by a group of electors representing the various constituent groups. This is a tough task for any nation, given the trauma, the long reign of un-democratic regimes, the lack of education and the genocidal imperative of vilification. What is a poor takfiri to do?

Secular educated people globally fear the re-emergence of Muslim Brothers and Salafis. Both are taught to hate everything western, particularly western ideas. Though they are Sunnis, long suffering, they look to the judge-led theocracy of Islamic Iran as an exemplar, something to aim for – total control.

Democracy admits the Islamists into its big tent. But what then? Since Islamic schools traditionally teach nothing applicable to today, clerics and their students cannot serve as high officials in offices requiring scientific expertise, accurate decisions.

Religious fundamentalists amongst the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, have long resisted any accommodation with international norms. Few study in any depth the sciences required to assess the scriptures, and to put them in a context by which they might be understood. Once a text is deemed sacred, it can't be changed. It can't be criticized. This leads to people using it as a recipe or a blueprint for conquest and genocide.

This lack of any social science means that the clerics cannot know their religion(s) and history, nor interpret them correctly, as the scriptures are cryptolectic. The true believers claim God composed these writings, but then, why would He want to deceive us, or make grammatical errors, or prompt genocide or suffer so many egregious contradictions? Is our God a mean one who arbitrarily consigns innocent populations to eternal hell (as so many believe) or is it a benevolent God who loves all Her children?

The fingers of man are all over these books. The Qur'an was not assembled till some five decades after Muhammad's death; then just pieced together. The 24 books of the Torah all come from different places, different perspectives. One book may have several authors, often competing. Hence the contradictions. In short, Judaism has had many interpretations. The New Testament, with its genocidal final book of Revelation, only survives in demotic Greek – a dumbed down version of Homeric and Hellenic Greek. The gospels sometimes contradict each other.

Islamic laws which most everyone hates – stoning, the cutting off of hands, persecution of non-Muslims, repression of women, terror, jihad – none of these laws are a part of Muhammad's revelation and practice at Mecca and Medina. Yet ignorant 'Muslims' will die to enforce these additions. We think it is time to resurrect the authentic Muslim reform tradition, initiated by Jalal ad Din Al Afghani in the mid 19^th century. Let the clerics find their place in service to their flocks. If they act to seize power, these terrorists use a law much higher (to them) than commonly-held civil or international laws and norms. Scripture is above criticism, and now, once again, the holy books are being used to prompt and justify genocide.

Egypt should do what the Ottomans did - forced the leading clerics from all sects to reside in Istanbul. There they got to know each other. There were few cases of genocidal sectarianism. The Turks fought long wars on its eastern borders against the Safavids, but Palestine was peaceful, if poor, for some four hundred and thirty years.

We are advising select muftis and social scientists of the utility of using the Ottoman recension of the shari'a – its modern scientific re-casting, in detailed, produced by Tanzimat reformers in the 19^th Century.

American Christian Zionists are terrified at the re-emergence of Islamic North Africa. They don't hesitate to betray their own co-religionists by bashing the Christian Palestinians and taking sides against the Christians in Syria. The Palestinians have been split in two, making their liquidation or 'transfer' easy. Israel is determined to become a Jewish state, which means that its annexation of Arab Palestine, requires 'transfer.'

In fact, an Israeli friend-of-a-friend called our office asking me to query my Arab contacts, how they would feel is they were each given a villa on the sea in the UAE. “Arab Palestine will always be stolen land, instigating war, terror and hate.”

The American government has an immense bureaucracy dedicated to fighting Islamic extremists. But what about militant Jewish extremists? Or the Christian ones? If the commander of the Israeli army units in the West Bank says publicly that the rampaging settlers, Jewish American fanatics, led by rabbis, are terrorists, pure and simple; if the Israeli army views the settlers that way, then why do Americans fall to the right of the IDF? Why back (or acquiesce in) the (slow) destruction of Israel's twin, Arab Palestine? The mullahs in Gaza also talk of a genocidal program.

“Do not use my name to cause harm. If you do, I will punish you especially severely.” -Exodus 20:7

Egypt -

As elections on 28^th of November draw nigh, Tahrir Square erupts again in mass demonstrations , prompting violent responses by the authorities. Some forty have been killed over the six days, from Nov. 17 to the 25^th. The protesters have been fighting back, with stones and petrol bombs. The army is using rubbed coated metal bullets on its own people. Why?

The demonstrations want to put the armed forces under civilian control. Back in February, we saw the army intervene to stop police attacks on innocents in Tahrir Square. There grew then an agreement between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some interpreted this unholy alliance as a joint bid to exclude the secular, educated people, those who originated the protests.. In any case, these cozy relations between the Brothers and the Army did not endure half a year. It became clear to all Egyptians that the leadership of the armed forces, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), was dragging its feet of democratic reforms.

Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi did not help much by being silent. After three days of rioting in Cairo, Alexandria, Aswan and Suez, he announced that presidential elections will be pushed up, to 2012. Yet as of this date, he has not called off those units which are battling their own citizens inn the side streets around Tahrir Square.

In Cairo, young, secular, educated people appear to leading the demonstration, as they did back in January. Fundamentalist Muslims, distinguished by their dress, seemed to have been excluded. Many marchers have expressed concern about their protest movement being manipulated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis.

But all expect the MB to win a plurality. Educated, urban populations went back to Tahrir just to protest the ascension of the Islamists and its alliance with the SCAF, to cut off any democracy. But Cairo and Alexandria are just districts. Outside, in the delta and up the Nile, amongst the fellahin, the Islamists rule.

Educated people shudder at the thought of making the shari'a the basis of family, civil, criminal and economic law. This new Islamist-led government will first gain a working majority, through coalition building with much smaller parties, then promulgate a constitution inimical to the rights of women.

As Monday's parliamentary elections occur on Nov. 28^th, Tahrir Square remains full of demonstrators

We believe elections will go ahead. Here is a list of coaltions and parties: Visit them.

Coalitions 

Democratic Alliance for Egypt
Egyptian Bloc
Islamist Bloc (Alliance for Egypt)
Revolution Continues Alliance

Parties

Egyptian Current Party
Egyptian Social Democratic Party
Democratic Workers’ Party
Free Egyptians Party
Freedom and Justice Party
Al-Karama Party
National Progressive Unionist (Tagammu) Party
National Democratic Party Offshoots
Al-Nour Party
Socialist Popular Alliance Party
Al-Wafd Party
Al-Wasat Party

Syria -

Exclusion from the Arab Union did not halt Al Asad's gruesome inhuman assaults against Syria's people. More and more soldiers are defecting. The civilians now have some protection: the secret police cannot move so freely, and need constant army escorts. Some 50 Syrians were killed just in the past few days. Some were Syrian soldiers fighting for the regime. Defecting Syrian army personnel are providing some security to protesters, and to neighborhoods being raided. It seems the Syrians have learned from the Americans, with night raids, phone intercepts, enhanced interrogation, and the arming of pro-government militia. Iran of course is involved: the collapse of Shi'i Syria would sever Iran's direct contact with its proxies Hizbullah (in south Lebanon), and Hamas (in Gaza). The stakes are very high.

Saudi Arabia -

Two people were killed on the 24^th in the east of the country. There has been a small Shi'i dissident movement in Dhamman, Hotuf , and Mubarraz. Militants use motor-scooters to deliver their target packages. This sporadic low-level resistance worries the royal family: most believe Iran is behind it. These Shi'i Saudi towns also access into Qatar.

Other research indicates a Saudi elite very anxious about Iran. Last month, an agreement was signed with the USA for some $60 billion-worth of weapons.

When war erupted in Libya nine months ago, the price for a barrel of oil rose by almost one third. Everybody blamed it on the jitters: “the market had learned that the economy is based on oil, and that the Middle East might be important.” The speculators get their cut, pushing up prices, as is their intention, as do the oil companies themselves. The Saudi oil minister said the kingdom would raise prices to keep the world price steady. But the Saudi government did not do that, smarting from America's knee-jerk support for Greater Israel.

The Saudi royal family will likely anoint Prince Nayef of the Interior Ministry to be king.  He is a conservative who probably does not comprehend how destructive and divisive are the Wahhabi clergy it funds throughout the world.  Why can't they promote their other native son - Malik ibn Anas?

Yemen -

Ali Abdullah Saleh flies to Saudi Arabia, vowing to give up office and signing an agreement to turn over authority to his vice president. The protesters, encamped at the university, were jubilant. Can they be patient enough to allow for a peaceful transfer of power? Ali Saleh's relatives would have to go, but where to? Saudi? Some five protesters were killed on the 24^th. Why? Because the protesters know that the mere departure of Saleh is just the surface. His people are still in control. Many of them are rather innocent. Many no doubt possess skills that Yemen needs.

We cannot see the intrigues and allegiances of the tribes and sub-tribes. Sunni and Shi'a sects also are players. Socialists and free marketeers also abound.

How to make the transition from riot to office? Behind the scenes, all the various groups have been discussing options and preferences. But tactically, it is the younger shebab, armed with digital devices, which (often) has control over the crowds. As crowds are moved around, in response to army/police operations, secular educated folk worry that their wish for democracy has been hijacked by clerics.

Morocco -

Unrest over last July's constitution: it did not lead to democracy. The regime is intent on hanging on to power. The constitution is not democratic and will not lead to a constitutional monarchy. King Muhammad VI  has reason to keep the portfolios of religion, treasury and armed forces under his sole control. Demonstrations in several cities.

United States -

We'll close with a paragraph taken from Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, p.270

“As the Muslim Brotherhood moved to capitalize on the social and political void in Egypt, the most strategically important US ally in the evolving Middle East, Washington's gigantic intelligence apparatus did nothing to warn policymakers, who were completely unprepared to promote a palatable alternative. Top Secret America had become so focused on undoing one terrorist at a time that no one was seeing the big, strategic picture, and that was because, at the bottom of it all, it had grown so big and so unwieldy and no one, still, was actually in charge.”