Download or read book Islamic Democracy and Its Limits written by Tawfiq Alsaif and published by Saqi Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between a democracy imposed by foreign powers and one developed locally, albeit within a political system dominated by religion? Tawfiq Alsaif explores Iran's ever-bumpy road to democracy by analyzing the political ideologies of both the conservative and reformist trends in Iranian politics and their distance from the traditional model of liberal democracy. Iran's experiences provide readers with a better understanding of the potentials, difficulties, motives, and limits pertaining to the process of democratization in the modern Middle East. Tawfiq Alsaif studied religion in Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran. He has published books on Islam and politics in Arabic.
Download or read book Islam and the Challenge of Democracy written by Khaled Abou El Fadl and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-28 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The events of September 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism have provoked widespread discussion about the possibility of democracy in the Islamic world. Such topics as the meaning of jihad, the role of clerics as authoritative interpreters, and the place of human rights and toleration in Islam have become subjects of urgent public debate around the world. With few exceptions, however, this debate has proceeded in isolation from the vibrant traditions of argument within Islamic theology, philosophy, and law. Islam and the Challenge of Democracy aims to correct this deficiency. The book engages the reader in a rich discourse on the challenges of democracy in contemporary Islam. The collection begins with a lead essay by Khaled Abou El Fadl, who argues that democracy, especially a constitutional democracy that protects basic individual rights, is the form of government best suited to promoting a set of social and political values central to Islam. Because Islam is about submission to God and about each individual's responsibility to serve as His agent on Earth, Abou El Fadl argues, there is no place for the subjugation to human authority demanded by authoritarian regimes. The lead essay is followed by eleven others from internationally respected specialists in democracy and religion. They address, challenge, and engage Abou El Fadl's work. The contributors include John Esposito, Muhammad Fadel, Noah Feldman, Nader Hashemi, Bernard Haykel, Muqtedar Khan, Saba Mahmood, David Novak, William Quandt, Kevin Reinhart, and Jeremy Waldron.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy written by John L. Esposito and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-05-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are Islam and democracy on a collision course? Do Islamic movements seek to "hijack democracy?" How have governments in the Muslim world responded to the many challenges of Islam and democracy today? A global religious resurgence and calls for greater political participation have been major forces in the post-Cold War period. Across the Muslim world, governments and Islamic movements grapple with issues of democratization and civil society. Islam and Democracy explores the Islamic sources (beliefs and institutions) relevant to the current debate over greater political participation and democratization. Esposito and Voll use six case studies--Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Sudan--to look at the diversity of Muslim experiences and experiments. At one end of the spectrum, Iran and Sudan represent two cases of militant, revolutionary Islam establishing political systems. In Pakistan and Malaysia, however, the new movements have been recognized and made part of the political process. Egypt and Algeria reveal the coexistence of both extremist and moderate Islamic activism and demonstrate the complex challenges confronting ruling elites. These case studies prove that despite commonalities, differing national contexts and identities give rise to a multiplicity of agendas and strategies. This broad spectrum of case studies, reflecting the multifaceted relationship of Islam and Democracy, provides important insight into the powerful forces of religious resurgence and democratization which will inevitably impact global politics in the twenty first century.
Download or read book Islamic Democratic Discourse written by M. A. Muqtedar Khan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging set of essays explores the multi-faceted relationship between Islam and democracy. Each essayist's unique viewpoint on contemporary Islam provides insight into Islamic political thought and its connection to Western democracy.
Download or read book Democracy and Its Limits written by Howard Handelman and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These multidisciplinary essays combine an appreciation of the progress made in Third World democratization with an assessment of structural and cultural factors that limit further progress toward procedural democracy in many parts of the world, such as China and much of the Middle East.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy in the Middle East written by Larry Diamond and published by . This book was released on 2003-08-07 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive assessment of the origins and staying power of Middle East autocracies, as well as a sober account of the struggles of state reformers and opposition forces to promote civil liberties, competitive elections and a pluralistic vision of Islam. Drawing on the insights of some 25 leading Western and Middle Eastern scholars, the book highlights the dualistic and often contradictory nature of political liberalization. Yemen suggest, political liberalization - as managed by the state - not only opens new spaces for debate and criticism, but is also used as a deliberate tactic to avoid genuine democratization. In several chapters on Iran, the authors analyze the benefits and costs of limited reform. There, the electoral successes of President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies inspired a new generation but have not as yet undermined the clerical establishment's power. By contrast, in Turkey a party with Islamist roots is moving a discredited system beyond decades of conflict and paralysis, following a stunning election victory in 2002. force for change. While acknowledging the enduring attraction of radical Islam throughout the Arab world, the concluding chapters carefully assess the recent efforts of Muslim civil society activists and intellectuals to promote a liberal Islamic alternative. Their struggles to affirm the compatibility of Islam and pluralistic democracy face daunting challenges, not least of which is the persistent efforts of many Arab rulers to limit the influence of all advocates of democracy, secular or religious.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy written by Asef Bayat and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can islam and democracy exist side by side? Is Islam compatible with democracy? The text examines one of the most frequently-asked and yet misguided questions. Democratic ethos should not and cannot be deduced from some essence of religions supposedly inscribed in the scriptures. Rather, they are the outcome of political struggles that push Islam toward democratic or authoritarian directions. Asef Bayat offers a new approach to examine Islam and democracy arguing how the social struggles of diverse Muslim populations, those with different interests and orientation, render Islam to embrace democratic ideas or authoritarian disposition. "Islamism" and "post-Islamism" are discussed as representing two contrasting movements which have taken Islam into different, authoritarian and inclusive, political directions.
Download or read book Muslim Democracy written by Edward Schneier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslim Democracy explores the relationship between politics and religion in forty-seven Muslim-majority countries, focusing especially on those with democratic experience, such as Indonesia and Turkey, and drawing comparisons with their regional, non-Islamic counterparts. Unlike most studies of political Islam, this is a politically-focused book, more concerned with governing realties than ideology. By changing the terms of the debate from theology to politics, and including the full complement of Islamic countries, Schneier shows that the boundaries between church and state in the Islamic world are more variable and diverse than is commonly assumed. Through case studies and statistical comparisons between Muslim majority countries and their regional counterparts, Muslim Democracy shows that countries with different religions but similar histories are not markedly different in their levels of democratization. What many Islamists and western observers call "Islamic law," moreover, is more a political than a religious construct, with religion more the tool than the engine of politics. "Women who drive in Saudi Arabia," as the author says, "are not warned they will go to hell, but that they will go to jail." With the political salience of religion rising in many countries, this book is essential reading for students of comparative politics, religion, and democratization interested in exploring the shifting boundaries between faith and politics.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy in the Maldives written by Azim Zahir and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Islam’s relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In doing so, the book interrogates a major approach to Muslim politics that assumes reformist interpretations of Islam are a positive, and even a necessary, force for liberalization and democratization in Muslim-majority contexts. This book shows reformist Islam did play certain positive roles in democratization in the Maldives. However, the book suggests reformist Islam may not be an invariably uncontroversial force in the space of politics. It argues that modern nation building in the Maldives shaped by political actors with reformist Islamic orientations, since around the 1930s, has also completely transformed Islam as a modern institutional and discursive political religion. These transformations of Islam as a modern political religion have existed as path-dependent constraints on the depth of democratization, ensuring religion-based limitations and intensifying controversy over religion vis-à-vis the state and individual rights. An original empirical contribution towards a better understanding of Islam and politics in the Maldives, this book will be of interest to academics and students working on democracy, and Islam in particular, and in the fields of political science and area studies, especially South Asian politics.
Download or read book Democratic Values in the Muslim World written by Moataz A. Fattah and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping examination of Muslim public opinion about governance and democracy.
Download or read book Islam And Democracy written by Fatima Mernissi and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Islam compatible with democracy? Must fundamentalism win out in the Middle East, or will democracy ever be possible? In this now-classic book, Islamic sociologist Fatima Mernissi explores the ways in which progressive Muslims--defenders of democracy, feminists, and others trying to resist fundamentalism--must use the same sacred texts as Muslims who use them for violent ends, to prove different views. Updated with a new introduction by the author written in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Islam and Democracy serves as a guide to the players moving the pieces on the rather grim Muslim chessboard. It shines new light on the people behind today's terrorist acts and raises provocative questions about the possibilities for democracy and human rights in the Islamic world. Essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of the Middle East today, Islam and Democracy is as timely now as it was upon its initial, celebrated publication.
Download or read book Democracy and the Limits of Self Government written by Adam Przeworski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political institutions under which we live today evolved from a revolutionary idea that shook the world in the second part of the eighteenth century: that a people should govern itself. Yet if we judge contemporary democracies by the ideals of self-government, equality and liberty, we find that democracy is not what it was dreamt to be. This book addresses central issues in democratic theory by analyzing the sources of widespread dissatisfaction with democracies around the world. With attention throughout to historical and cross-national variations, the focus is on the generic limits of democracy in promoting equality, effective participation, control of governments by citizens, and liberty. The conclusion is that although some of this dissatisfaction has good reasons, some is based on an erroneous understanding of how democracy functions. Hence, although the analysis identifies the limits of democracy, it also points to directions for feasible reforms.
Download or read book Muslim Democracy written by Edward V. Schneier and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslim Democracy explores the relationship between politics and religion in forty-seven Muslim-majority countries, focusing especially on those with democratic experience, such as Indonesia and Turkey, and drawing comparisons with their regional, non-Islamic counterparts.' Unlike most studies of political Islam, this is a politically-focused book, more concerned with governing realties than ideology.' By changing the terms of the debate from theology to politics, and including the full complement of Islamic countries, Schneier shows that the boundaries between church and state in the Islamic world are more variable and diverse than is commonly assumed. Through case studies and statistical comparisons between Muslim majority countries and their regional counterparts, Muslim Democracy shows that countries with different religions but similar histories are not markedly different in their levels of democratization.' What many Islamists and western observers call "Islamic law," moreover, is more a political than a religious construct, with religion more the tool than the engine of politics. "Women who drive in Saudi Arabia," as the author says, "are not warned they will go to hell, but that they will go to jail."? With the political salience of religion rising in many countries, this book is essential reading for students of comparative politics, religion, and democratization interested in exploring the shifting boundaries between faith and politics.'
Download or read book Democracy and Islam in Jordan written by Uta Freyer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict, Security, grade: 95 von 100, University of Haifa (Politics), course: Peacekeeping Operations, language: English, abstract: This graduation project examines the influences of Islamic powers on democracy in Jordan. The Middle East is in upheaval, especially the Arabic Spring has contributed to question and reorganize society structures. While democracy and human rights take an increasing role in the global context, this seems not to be the case in the Arabic World. In the case of Jordan, the country presents itself as a constitutional monarchy within a democratic system. The constitution guarantees Western liberal democratic freedoms. Anyhow, in practice, they are rarely implemented. The royal house strives to present the society as modern and democratic and pursues specific interests by that. Anyhow, examining the factors that define democracy, one has to raw the conclusion that society structures in Jordan are authoritarian and undemocratic. This paper examines the (un)democratic structures of Jordanian society while especially focusing on the Islamic groups in Jordan. It analyses the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and their corresponding political party IAF (the biggest Islamic party in Jordan) in parliament, on political reforms, on the Arabic Spring, on the role of woman in society, on the account of middle class and on the relationship of the party towards the central government. By that, it is going to become clear that IAF and Muslim Brotherhood scarcely influence political reforms in Jordan. Also in the resistance movement of the Arabic Spring in Jordan, Islamic groups had only a marginal impact. The former cooperation of the IAF with the Hashemite regime, which was based on grounds of common interests, came to rest. Experts fear an escalation with a possible radicalization of Islamic powers. Endeavours to establish more democratic structures have been disrupted. It seems to be the most important challenge of the time of the entire Arabic World to take Islamic movements serious and to integrate them, while simultaneously pressing ahead with endeavours to democratize society.
Download or read book Iran Islam and Democracy written by Ali M. Ansari and published by Chatham House (Formerly Riia). This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised, updated, and expanded, this new edition details political developments in Iran since the summer of 2000. In expanding on arguments outlined in the first edition, the book looks at the increasing polarity of views and the changing nature of reformism in light of successive setbacks and growing international tensions.
Download or read book Democracy In Islam written by Sayed Khatab and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-06-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the view of Islamic extremists and critics of Islam, this book explores the very topical issue of Islam’s compatibility with democracy. It examines: principles of Islam's political theory and the notion of democracy therein the notion of democracy in medieval and modern Muslim thought Islam and human rights the contribution of Islamic legal ideas to European legal philosophy and law. The book addresses the pressing need for a systematic show of an Islamic politics of human rights and democracy grounded in the Qur’an. The West wonders about Islam and human rights, and its own ability to incorporate Muslim minority communities. Many Muslims also seek to find within Islam support source for democratic governance and human rights.
Download or read book Islamism and Democracy in India written by Irfan Ahmad and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-21 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is the most influential Islamist organization in India today. Founded in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi with the aim of spreading Islamic values in the subcontinent, Jamaat and its young offshoot, the Student Islamic Movement of India or SIMI, have been watched closely by Indian security services since September 11. In particular, SIMI has been accused of being behind terrorist bombings. This book is the first in-depth examination of India's Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI, exploring political Islam's complex relationship with democracy and providing a rare window into the Islamist trajectory in a Muslim-minority context. Irfan Ahmad conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a school in the town of Aligarh, among student activists at Aligarh Muslim University, at a madrasa in Azamgarh, and during Jamaat's participation in elections in 2002. He deftly traces Jamaat's changing position in relation to India's secular democracy and the group's gradual ideological shift toward religious pluralism and tolerance. Ahmad demonstrates how the rise of militant Hindu nationalism since the 1980s--evident in the destruction of the Babri mosque and widespread violence against Muslims--led to SIMI's radicalization, its rejection of pluralism, and its call for jihad. Islamism and Democracy in India argues that when secular democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims in turn embrace pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian and exclusionary, Muslims turn radical.
