Mereja Forum

[Roha]

Democracy and Islam: Incompatibility and Mutual Antagonism
by Martin Slann

This essay attempts to explore issues that are both distinct and intertwined. The first is whether an
Islamic society is capable of accepting of a permanent process of democratization. The jury may be out
on this, but, as will be seen, there is a growing body of evidence that strongly suggests the conclusion
that Islamic society is culturally and religiously resistant to democratization. ...
The second issue that is even more serious than the first is whether democracy and Islam can
coexist. This is not a trivial matter given the Islamic revival and growing interest in global jihad that has
been manifest over the last quarter century. Moreover, militant Islam, which has no use at all for any
aspect of western or western style democracy, views democracy as a decadent and immoral form of
government that Muslims have the moral obligation to destroy. It is no coincidence that militant Islam
considers itself at war with western democracy in general and the United States and Israel in particular.
Moreover, Islamic supremacism, the notion that Islamic sharia law must be predominant throughout all
aspects of society suggests that Islam and democracy are certainly incompatible. The relegation of non-muslims
to the status of dhimmitude in itself thwarts any possibility of either democratization or
democracy. No functioning democracy can legitimately accept a two‐tiered society in which one’s
status, legal and otherwise, is determined by religious affiliation.

Islam as a Totalitarian Ideology
Muslim and non‐Muslim defenders of Islam argue that the Islamic religion is in the tradition of
the other two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity. Some scholars have taken issue with this
assumption arguing instead that Judaism and Christianity do not deny “the legitimacy of any form of
social, political, or cultural organization other than itself.”2 Islam clearly does so in its application of
sharia law and other spiritual instruments. Serge Trifkovic instead suggests that a more apt similarity is
one that compares Islam with communism and National Socialism.3 Though communism contains
atheism and National Socialism (or fascism) preaches the racial superiority of “Aryans” over other
groups both, like Islam, provide an all encompassing totalitarian ideology that does not tolerate
compromise or negotiation with the “Others” except where it is temporarily advantageous.

Moreover, Islam definitively divides the world into two communities: Dar al‐Islam or Land of
Peace and Dar al‐Harb, Land of War. The two are constantly in conflict until the planet is successfully
Islamized. This goal will only be accomplished through violence. In practice, violence is both justified
and necessary. For non‐believers the choices are stark. Either they will agree to convert to Islam or
agree to pay a special tax (and adhere to various daily humiliations), or they will have to be killed5 and
their property, which may include wives and children, confiscated by the Muslims who dispose of them.
The fact that, soon after Muhamad’s death in 632, Christians and Jews as well as pagans were prohibited
from residing in Arabia suggests a spiritual purity or cleansing rarely found elsewhere. To this day,
Arabia remains a mono‐religious society and there are occasional episodes of harsh punishment for any
citizen committing the sin and crime of blasphemy or voluntary conversion from Islam to another faith.
Islamic society is not a community in which all are equal before the law. Only Muslims can be
equal to one another. By definition, those who aren’t or do not become Muslims are lesser beings.

Full article ... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=1582444