ASMA AFSARUDDIN

(UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME- U.S.A.)

MAWDUDI'S "THEO-DEMOCRACY:" HOW ISLAMIC IS IT REALLY?

he deficit of democratic governments in Muslim-majority societies today T has given rise to the pat bromide in certain, particularly neo-conservative and polemical, circles in the West, that Islam and democracy are incompatible. I In such circles, both Islam and democracy are unproblematically assumed to be fixed essences at complete loggerheads with one another. This is so, runs the common wisdom in these circles, because Islam's notion of political administra• tion is intrinsically authoritarian and yoked to immutable divine laws which prevent Muslim countries from developing democratic governments today. De• mocracy, on the other hand, is regarded as a purely Western innovation and the logical culmination of European post-Reformation separation of church and state, the sine qua non of good governance in modern Western political thought. These master narratives undergird public discourses of all kinds today in the West and have played a crucial role in shaping the foreign policies of the United States and the European Union toward Muslim majority countries, particularly in the post• September 11 milieu. The priority that has been accorded to democratization of the Middle East in particular by American policy-makers under the current ad• ministration of George W. Bush reflects their certitude that Western-style secu• lar democracy is the single panacea for the political woes that currently afflict Muslim majority countries. Interestingly, these Western political narratives have spawned counter master narratives in hard-line Islamist circles, which are often their mirror image. Hard• line Islamists2 similarly maintain that traditional Islamic notions of governance are antithetical to Western principles of democracy, and although consultative and collective political decision-making is part and parcel of the Islamic political tradition, it differs from the Western conceptualization of democratic political participation. Thus, like Westernist advocates of democracy, these Islamists sub• scribe to a form of Islamic exceptionalism which militates against the adoption

1 - Probably the best known proponent of this idea is Samuel P. Huntington, as expressed in his "The Clash of Civilizations?", Foreign Affairs, LXXII (1993), p. 22-49. 2 - I am using the phrase "hard-line Islamists" to distinguish them from moderate Islamists who usually subscribe to democratic principles of participatory government and advocate tak• ing part in elections as the preferred avenue for coming to power. Moderate Islamists belong to the Justice and Development party in Morocco and certain wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, for example.

OM, LXXXVII, 2, 2007, p. 301-325 © lsriruto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino - Roma ASMA AFSARUDDIN

of modern democratic principles. The foremost proponent of such ideas has been the Indian-born, later Pakistani, Muslim political activist, Abu >l- cAla, Mawdudi (d. 1979), founder of the Gamtic at-i Is/,timi party, who coined the term "theo-democracy" to distinguish Islamic concepts of political participation from Western ones. This article will primarily be concerned with outlining the key ideas nestled within the concept of "theo-democracy" as articulated by Mawdudi, followed by a critique of these ideas. It will be argued that Mawdudi's notion of theo-democ• racy is rather a-historical and unfaithful to, and even distorting of, the variegated pre-modern Islamic political tradition which evolved over time. On the basis of this scrutiny, we are better able to judge how "Islamic" the notion of theo-de• mocracy really is, since, according to Mawdudi, this claim establishes the con• cept's basic legitimacy.

Mawdiidi and his Concept of Theo-Democracy Mawliinii Abu >l_ Mawdudi, as he is popularly known, is easily one of the most influential thinkers in the Muslim world of the twentieth century. He wrote primarily in Urdu, his native tongue, but his works in translation into other Islamic and Western languages have commanded the attention of many Muslims of the twentieth century grappling with the problems of Western colo• nialism and subsequent Muslim disarray. Mawdudi was born into a highly reli• gious family in India and was instructed by his father in the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu languages and in the essentials of Islam. Mawdudi received very little for• mal instruction (for about three years) in a madrasah or religious school and did not study modern subjects, such as the natural sciences. He would, however, re• sume his studies in 1921, studying traditional Islamic sciences, such as tafiir, ~adi[, jurisprudence, logic, and philosophy, with the eminent religious scholar, Mawliinii cAbd al-Salam Niyiizi (d. 1966).3 Mawdudi's public career was launched in journalism, when at the age of sev• enteen he became the editor of the weekly Tag in Jabalpur, India. At this time, he also began to study English with a tutor, and after a while was able to read English language works on a wide variety of topics, such as history, philosophy, political science, and economics, gaining exposure to Western thought. In 1924, he assumed the editorship of the influential newspaper al-Camic ah, published by the Camic at-i c Ulamti', a position he held until his resignation in 1927. In these three years, he published on a variety of critical topics and personally came to know some of the most influential Muslim scholars and thinkers of his time. In late 1932, Mawdudi bought and assumed the editorship of another jour• nal, Targumtin al-Qur' tin, published in Hyderabad, which provided him with a forum to expound upon his views on contemporary Islam and Muslims and their

3 - I am drawing many of these biographical details from Charles J. Adams, Mawdudi and the Islamic State, in Voices ofResurgent Islam, ed. John Esposito, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 99-133; and Syed Vali Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996, 9-46.