1) To talk of an ‘Islamic democracy’ is to distort the concept of democracy to an unrecognisable extent. Irrespective of whether the religion itself can be conceptualised as democratic, this cannot compensate for the absence of political democracy.
2) Islamic states lack civil society where democratic debate and pressure can be fostered. This is partly because a conservative and religious curriculum dominates education and discourages a culture of questioning and debate.
3) Islam is an anti-democratic religion because Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with the pluralism that is necessary for a democratic state. Muslim societies (such as many of the Arab or Asian states, for example Saudi Arabia) are authoritarian and consequently violently repressive. Authoritarianism is the natural consequence of the legal and doctrinal rigidity which makes a political culture of compromise impossible. Shari’a law is viewed as perfect and divine. Consequently, laws are best made through theocratic interpretation rather than democratic debate. This lends to systems structured around institutions such as the Faqih and the role of the clergy. Shari’a does not require separate legislatively defined provisions.
4) The notion of equal citizenship is also absent from Islamic thought because insurmountable inequalities between believers and non-believers are built into Islam.
5) The Muslim world cannot be democratic until it reforms its position on women. A central Qur’anic metaphor describes women as complementary to men, but not equal. As such, polygyny is allowed, women are denied equal inheritance rights and by some interpretations of Shari’a, their testimony in Court is worth half that of men.
Islam has always been Theocratic ; From the time of Muhammad (p.b.u.h) [7th century] all the way to early 20th century when the Last Caliph was dissolved in Turkey ..
Had Muslims remained on a par with all other societies, they might have revived. But by the 18th century one particular set of societies in western Europe had developed an economic and social system capable of transcending the 5,000-year-old limitations of the agrarian-based settled world as defined by the Greeks—who called it Oikoumene. Unlike most of the lands of Islamdom, those societies were rich in natural resources (especially the fossil fuels that could supplement human and animal power) and poor in space for expansion. Cut off by Muslims from controlling land routes from the East, European explorers had built on and surpassed Muslim seafaring technology to compete in the southern seas and discover new sea routes
The power of Islam as a source of public values had already waxed and waned many times; it intensified in the 18th and 19th centuries, receded in the early 20th century, and surged again after the mid-20th century. Thus, European colonizers appeared in the midst of an ongoing process that they greatly affected but did not completely transform.
The many efforts to revive and resist were largely unsuccessful. By 1818 British hegemony over India was complete, and many other colonies and mandates followed between then and the aftermath of World War I. Not all Muslim territories were colonized, but nearly all experienced some kind of dependency, be it psychological, political, technological, cultural, or economic.
In the 19th century Westernization and Islamic activism coexisted and competed. By the turn of the 20th century secular ethnic nationalism had become the most common mode of protest in Islamdom, but the spirit of Islamic reconstruction was also kept alive, either in conjunction with secular nationalism or in opposition to it.
Later in the 20th century, colonized Muslim societies gradually achieved political independence and built new states. Many of these states adopted a “Muslim” identity that they interpreted in various ways and implemented within such domains as law, education, and moral conduct.
The confused state of muslim countries today on the "mode of government" has its roots in religious history(glorious past) ..We are not willing to let go the religion , and at the same time trying to adopt contemporary democratic ideas
Today , 29 of the Muslim Countries around the globe are classified as "Authoritarian Regime" , 17 as "Hybrid Regimes" and only 3 (Indonesia , Malaysia and Senegal) as "Flawed Democracy" .. 25 of the muslim countries are officialy "Secular State" , still 40 of the muslim countries rank b/w 100-165 on the democracy Index Rank ...
This poor performance of Muslim countries on democracy index results from the basic fact that "Islam & democracy are incompatible"
Trying to mix "Islam" with "Republic " has damaged the essence of both of them ...
Either we can be a "Socialist Islamic Theocracy"
or a "Democratic Republic"
Not "Islamic" & "Republican" at the same time
We were the first one to invent the idea of "Theocratic(Islamic) Republic" when we officially named our country as "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" in 1956 ..
Since then , the "Islamic" part grew stronger over time and "Republic" became weaker and weaker .. And result is in front of us now ...
The idea of a"Theocratic Republic" has failed as we tried to mix two entirely different philosophies ; Islam & Republic
