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Khaled Abou El Fadl Islam and the Challenge Of KHALED ABOU EL FADL (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Los ANGELES) ISLAM AND THE CHALLENGE OF DEMOCRATIC COMMITMENT he question I deal with here is whether concurrent and simultaneous moral T and normative commitments to Islam and to a democratic form of gov­ ernment are reconcilable or are they mutually exclusive. I will argue in this arti­ cle that it is indeed possible to reconcile Islam with a commitment in favor of democracy. In this article, I will present a systematic exploration of Islamic the­ ology and law as it relates to a democratic system of government, and in this context, I will address the various elements within Islamic belief and practice that promotes, challenges, or hinders the emergence of an ideological commit­ ment in favor of democracy. In many ways, the basic and fundamental objective of this article is to investigate whether the Islamic faith is consistent or reconcil­ able with a democratic faith. As addressed below, both Islam and democracy represent a set of comprehensive and normative moral commitments and beliefs about, among other things, the worth and entitlements of human beings. The challenging issue is to understand the ways in which the Islamic and democratic system of convictions and moral commitments could undermine, negate, or validate and support each other. At the outset of this article, I make no apologies for my conviction that separate and independent commitments in favor of Islam and in favor of democracy are morally desirable and normatively good. The problem is to facilitate the co-existence of both of these desirable moral com­ mitments and, to the extent possible, to guard against a situation in which the one challenges and negates the other. As discussed below, in my view reconcilia­ tion, and perhaps cooperation, between Islam and democracy is challenging but absolutely necessary. At the very outset of this article, the first issue that ought to be addressed is the ideal form of government in Islam. A jurist, like the well-known Muslim his­ torian and sociologist Ibn J::Ialdun (d. 784/1382), a jurist writing a few centuries ago on the subject of Islam and systems of government would have commenced his treatise by separating all political systems into three broad types. The first, such a jurist would have described as a natural system - a system that approxi­ mates a primitive state of nature. This is an uncivilized system of lawlessness and anarchy in which the most powerful in society dominates and tyrannizes the rest. In such a system, instead of law, there would be custom, and instead of government, there would be tribal elders that are respected and obeyed only as long as they remained the strongest and the most physically able. The second OM, LXXXVII. 2, 2007, p. 247-.lO0 0 l,tituro pa l'Orientc C. A. N.illino - Rom,1 KHALED ABOU EL FAD!. system would be described as dynastic, which according to Muslim jurists, are tyrannical as well. Such systems are based not on custom, but on laws issued by a king or prince. However, according to Muslim jurists, such a system would be illegitimate as well. Because the king or prince is the source of the law, the sys­ tem is considered baseless, whimsical, and capricious. In such a system, people obey laws out of necessity or compulsion, but the laws themselves are illegiti­ mate and tyrannical. The third system, and the most superior, is the Caliphate, which is based on sari< ah law. Sari< ah law, according to Muslim jurists, fulfills the criteria of justice and legitimacy, and binds the governed and governor alike. Because the government is bound by a higher law that may not be altered or changed, and because the government may not act whimsically or outside the pale of law, the Caliphate system is superior to any other. 1 Many Muslim scholars, like Ibn 1::[aldun, consistently made the same as­ sumption: the Islamic political system was considered as if a challenge to the world. While all other polities are doomed to despotic governance, and their laws are individualistic and whimsical, the Caliphate system of governance is su­ perior because it is based on the rule of law. 2 Whether as a matter of historical practice this assumption was justified or not, the material point was that classical Muslim jurists exhibited a distinct aversion to whimsical or unrestrained gov­ ernment. A government bound by sari< ah was considered meritorious in part because it is a government where human beings do not have unfettered author­ ity over other human beings, and there are limits on the reach of power. So, for instance, a Sunni jurist such as Abu al-Farag Ibn al-Gawzi (d. 597/1200) as­ serted that a Caliph who tries to alter God's laws for politically expedient rea­ sons is implicitly accusing the sari< ah of imperfection. 3 Ibn al-Gawzi elaborated upon this by contending that, without the rule of sari< ah, under the guise of po- I - Ni~am Barakat, Muqaddimah ft' 1-fikr al-siydsi al-isldmi, Riya4, Cami' at al-Malik Sa 'ud, 1985, p. 119. 2 - See Abu 'l-1:Jasan 'Ali b. Muryammad b. l:Jabib al-Mawardi, al-A~kdm al-sultdniyyah, Bay­ rut, Dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyyah, 1985, p. 19-21; al-Qa4i Abu Ya'la Muryammad b. al-1:Jusayn al-Farra', al-A~kdm al-Sul[dniyyah, Bayrut, Dar al-kutub al-' ilmiyyah, 1983, p. 28; Ann Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam: An Introduction to the Study of Islamic Po­ litical Theory: The jurists, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 19; W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought-. The Basic Concepts, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1968, p. I 02-103; Hanna Mikhail, Politics and Revelation: Mawardi and After, Edinburgh, Ed­ inburgh University Press, 1995, p. 20-21; H.A.R. Gibb, "Constitutional Organization", Law in the Middle East, vol. I, Origin and Development of Islamic Law, eds. Majid Khadduri and Herbert J. Liebesny, Washington D.C., Middle East Institute, 1955, p. 3-27, 9, 12; Khaled Abou El Fadl, Rebellion and Violence in Islamic law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 200 I; Muryammad Gala! Saraf and 'Ali 'Abd al-Mu' !i Muryammad, al-Fikr al-siydsi ft '1- lsldm: sahsiyydt wa marjdhib, al-Iskandariyyah, Dar al-Cami' at al-Mi~riyyah, 1978, p. 399; Yusuf Ibis, Nu!ti! al-fikr al-siydsi al-isldmi: al-imdmah 'ind al-sunnah, Bayrut, Dar al-Tali' ah, 1966, p. 55. 3 - Abu 'I-Farag al-Bagdadi lbn al-Gawzi, al-Sifa' ft mawd' i~ al-multik wa al-hulafa', ed. Fu 'ad ~mad, Dar al-Da' wah, al-Iskandariyyah, 1985, p. 55; Id., al-Misbdh al-mudi' ft hildfal-mus­ tadi', ed. Ibrahim Nagiyyah, Ma!ba'at al-Awqaf, Bagdad, 1979, I, p. 298. .
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