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Criticism of Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi’s ‘Islamist Democracy’ Doctrine

Jul 6, 2004 1:35 pm By Robert Spencer

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.

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Filed Under: academia, Sharia


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