MEMRI reports that "Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, a Jordanian intellectual residing in the U.S.," has written a scathing "critique of Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi's claim that 'democracy is in the essence of Islam.'" Note how he describes Qaradhawi, who has been praised as a reformer by John Esposito.
His points about democracy and Islam are most interesting to me, because I have written on several occasions about the difficulties democracy faces in an Islamic context. Of course, when I have said these things, I have been called an "Islamophobe" and suchlike by American Muslim spokesmen. What will they call Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi?
Some highlights of his critique:
"Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi is the highest religious authority of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the spiritual leader of most of the religious movements that have become bloodthirsty terror organizations. He is religious and financial advisor to over 20 financial companies operating according to Islamic financial tenets, which are known to have destroyed the businesses of most small investors in Egypt. It was he who came up with the idea of establishing the Al-Jazeera cable channel and he who has been the spiritual leader and senior religious advisor of this channel."[Al-Qaradhawi] is also political-religious advisor to the Prince of Qatar and a prominent participant in conferences on democracy, Islamic Shura [Consultative Council], and interfaith dialogues. 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,' according to traditions falsely attributed to the Prophet. Recently [Al-Qaradhawi] has become one of the champions of 'Islamist Democracy…'"
Democracy is Alien to Islam
"Al-Qaradhawi began his speech by saying that democracy is in the spirit of Islam. It is known … that the term 'democracy' does not exist at all in Islam… Neither the Koran, nor the true or false traditions (and there are numerous false traditions), nor the teachings of pious or sinning ancestors mentioned the word 'democracy' throughout the political history of Islam as we know it today."Although Islam is a political religion par excellence, and was aimed at building a political empire which emerged at the time of the Righteous Caliphs and ended with the Abbasid era, Muslim jurisprudence did not address political issues except in a few modest books, the most important of which were written by Abu Al-Hassan Al-Mawardi in the 11th century and Ibn Taymiyya in the 12th century, after the Mamelukes rose to power. [3] These books were relevant only to their time; they dealt with the sovereigns of that time and urged them to be just and honest – but they had no ideological, political and historical continuation.
"Therefore, Arabs and Muslims have no political heritage to draw upon in administering their affairs today. Politics [for them] was a way to rule, not a science or a political doctrine, as explained by Ahmad Al-Baghdadi in his book 'Renewal of Religious Thought.' Hence, 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.
"Al-Qaradhawi's contention that true democracy is in the spirit of Islam is false… The Islamists became aware of democracy only recently, when the West implemented it and began urging other countries to implement it too, in order to protect the people of the earth from annihilation at the hands of despotic and repressive rulers.
Read it all.
Despot desperate for power,
the flower of the seed of evil,
nourished in the desert of the moon god,
watered by the blood of mohammed's hatred,
despot who degrades the word democracy
when it suits him to advance their theocracy.
The shades of hell scream his name
while they play a waiting game . . .
so writes the poetess of the Free.
Here is the quote from Esposito:
"A cross section of Muslim thinkers, religious leaders and mainstream Islamic movements from Egypt to Indonesia, Europe to America, engage in this kind of reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights (See article: the 'reformist interpretation' includes leaving gender rights and a variety of other things to the domain of 'human interpretation'). They include such religious scholars (‘ulama) as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi"
How can Esposito get away with this kind of slipshot, grossly false, scholarship? What is Georgetown? A propaganda machine?
False claims in Shakespeare interpretation will just ruin an academic reputation; broadcasting this kind of falsehood might get people killed.
There should be an uproar in the academy!
I recently read somewhere after the last article about the new mosque in Boston that many other muslims said that Yusuf al-Qaradawi is referred to as a heretic and is pretending to be a sheikh and is misleading muslim followers astray from the true teachings of the Quran.
He appears to be embracing a more modern approach to the 21st century that could bring Islam to reflect more democratic ideas which has been lacking in Islam.
Even though there is this fear that there are other undermining reasons for his approach to dismantling sharia.
Could this have been the fear that Russia felt about jadidism, which was a movement to bring Islam into the 20th century but was crushed by the new Soviets under Lenin in the 1920s`?
Re Shaker al-Nabulsi's critique of Qhardawi:
There is a cluster of Democracies and/or highly democratized political systems that speak English. Indeed, it is all but impossible to think of the politics of some of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ without thinking of elections, laws, nad honest differences of opinion that debate rather than fight.
However, English doesn't have a word for "democracy", either. It needs to borrow a Greek word that Aristotle used to describe a system of mob rule, where people vote each other's property into their own pockets. His word for the rule of the many (whole body of citizens) geared to the public good was politeia; unfortunately, that carried over into English as the name for any system of government (polity).
Also, forms of consensual and compact politics have been around even before anyone could borrow Greek words. David's kingship over Israel had to be confirmed by the elders of the people, as well as the divine anointing given by Samuel--a mixture of theocracy and a kind of senatorial republicanism. The ancient Teutons elected chiefs by seeing whose party could shout and pound their shields loudest (a sort of democracy). The Scandinavians had assemblies called Thing (the Icelandic Althing is the oldest sitting legislative/deliberative body on the planet).
Frankly, I'd like to know a little more about what Muslims say constitutes the proper choice of a leader. Maybe it is an attempt at uiniversal despotism under a Caliph. Maybe there's something more. Either way, I'd like to know.
Mackie: The Soviets hated any and all traditional religious beliefs. They picked on harmless orthodox Jews, ethnic German Mennonites and Stundists, Slavic Russian Baptists, and Mongol Buddhists (Lamaist) as well as on Muslims. They were even nasty towards the Russian Orthodox Church until World War II made it useful as an icon (pun intneded) to mobilize Russian nationalism.
Frankly, the only point at which Communism was better than Islam was that the world saw through Communism a lot faster. On the other hand, the divinization of mortal men as "great leaders" under Communism, and the willful distortion of every social science that Marxism laid its hands on are points where Marxism-Leninism may have been worse than Islam.
By the way, don't think I'm sticking up for Islam. I'm an unrepentant anti-Communist, and please note that I call Islam only second worst.
Kephal: Your right of course, during that revolution and in its broadest contents, all religious dogma was removed by the hammer and cycle along with Islam as well.
I was more focused on removal of the jadidist movement that did attempt to move into Eastern Asia after communism took over Russia in the early twenties.
Thanks