THE STUDENT'S LESSON FOR THE TEACHER

Easing into Islamic democracy: Convinced by their experience in the US, American Muslims are helping form democratic coalitions in the Muslim world and are building their case on Islamic principles. (Jane Lampman, 5/29/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

It's well accepted throughout the Muslim world that the decay of Muslim civilization began 500 years ago because religious scholars stopped reinterpreting Islamic law. Part of today's debate is who can legitimately participate. Many say the complexities of contemporary society demand it go far beyond religious scholars. "If you want to apply sharia to banking, you have to understand banking," Alkebsi says.

Many argue that women must be part of the process. Some are working with women in the US and abroad to reinterpret their role according to the Koran.

"One concept I teach from the Koran is that each individual is God's representative on earth," says Sharifa Alkateeb, head of the North American Council for Muslim Women. "That implies moral agency and ownership of her own thought processes; awareness of community; the ability to criticize any level of control, from the family to government. That concept is fundamentally democratic, and it can revamp society."

Reinterpretation is a huge task and also requires winning over the people. "In Islamic countries, people want more freedom, but at the same time, the vast majority want to live according to God's laws, which they believe bring them happiness in this world and the next," says Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of "Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization."

They need to be convinced that democracy does not mean taking God's sovereignty and giving it to humans. "If in a democracy you have a parliament that passes laws which do not oppose those divine laws, there would not be a problem," he adds. "What would happen in the US if the Congress one day passed laws that negated the Ten Commandments?"

This is why it is so crucial that the democratic movement include moderate Islamists. And Iraq is a test. "It's very important we build real democracy in Iraq, and the key to success is being inclusive of all groups," Masmoudi says. "Secularism isn't popular because of Saddam Hussein. If we impose it, it will backfire."

But he doesn't think the majority will vote for theocracy either. "What they want is a moderate, progressive interpretation of Islam, a democratic state that respects the will of the majority and protects the rights of the minority. It's extremely important, because if we don't succeed ... democracy will lose credibility."

It's easy for us in the West to look at the Islamic world, see how backwards it is economically and politically, and comprehend that it must modernize. What is harder for us is to look at the West through Muslim eyes and ask whether it is worth giving up medievalism if it means becoming France. The EU is in fact engaged right now in the process of adopting a conbstitution that makes an explicit point of not mentioning God and Europe's Christian origins. Our Founders believed that no stable democratic republic and no decent society was possible without due deference to God. What reason then is there to believe that they would be any more eager to embrace this secular humanist vision of modernity than Islam has been? Is not the reality that if liberal democracy is to be Man's future, it will have to recapture some of the submission and obligation to God that characterizes Islam, so that our culture is not so individualized and atomized that our only relation is to the State? If you were betting on their respective futures right now, you'd have to favor the Middle East over most of the West, because we know that liberty will gradually work its way into the Islamic world, but there's little reason to believe that morality and human dignity will be restored in the West. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2003 9:59 AM