[twinaircant]

This is a disease, like malaria, where a person, a group, a country or a whole civilization thinks that democracy is the cure for all ills of society. The basic tenet of democracy is that collective decisions must be taken according to the majority wishes. Of course there is a competing view that collective decisions must be strictly according to the wishes of God Almighty but God is an anathema to the philosophy of democracy and to bolster this many democracies qualify themselves as secular democracies. But we digress. Every democratic society has so far ignored the fundamental instability of the idea of democracy. The simple statement of this instability is the question what if the majority decides to do injustice to the minority. Then what? The situation is completely consistent with democracy. It is inconsistent with some thing but not with the fundamental tenet of democracy. Of course the intellectual defense of democracy has been under the control of those people who will, undemocratically-because any intellectual group by and large will be a minority, just not entertain above doubt about the stability of democracy. They would like to push another idea down your throat that democracy also means, as an inherent mechanism, protection of minority rights. This basically does not address the misgivings because the question still remain as to who will implement the clause of protection of the minority rights - the majority being inclined to do otherwise. Curiously there is a practical example where above scenario has been played out in reality-in Germany between the two world wars. This is a modern miracle where an empirical evidence has been made light of by profound theories. The irony being that events of Germany are very much part of the collective memory - for certain obvious reasons. In fact in the west, the nursery and the breeding ground for this experiment, the things reached a certain level of smugness in this regard where people started predicting the end of democracy or end of history. On the face of it these two things, indeed it is one and the same thing - just two sides of the same coin, might sound antagonistic to the idea of democracy but they are not. These ideas, nay this idea, is just a complacent evaluation of democracy-a declaration of success of the idea of democracy. The end of democracy idea belongs to Fareed Zakaria, ironically son of Dr Rafiq Zakaria - a man who had worried about the state of Muslims in India in most of his life, while the idea of end of history belongs to Francis Fukuyama. In the latter avatar this idea gave rise to the idea of clash of civilizations a la Samuel Huntington. This is, in line with American obsession with the most grand scenarios, the pinnacle of the instability inherent in democracy. The largest stage on which you can play the game of democracy is the world stage and Huntington occupied that-in his thought space. The target happened to be Islam and Muslims. And the idea was not completely devoid of complete physical implementation. European and American civilizations (with tacit approval or express approval) via the instrument called NATO have played havoc in many locations belonging to the society that was Huntington's target. To some extent these forces are in the retreat mode, and God make their retreat complete, but there is another similar instability that has been looming large on the horizon of a sizable population adhering to Islam. This is the case of India. There is an organization that has been functioning for around ninety years and whose spiritual guide thought that actions of Adolf Hitler, to them, were worth pondering and profit by. To complete the irony these elements have full support of the survivors of the earlier manifestation of the democratic instability.

This thread is to collect links to other similar threads at SF as well as from the rest of the internet. So go ahead and chip in. Of course your are welcome to contribute your thoughts.

[twinaircant]

A wise person once said that India is not a democracy - it is anarchy that works.

Now how far is democracy itself from anarchy?

American democracy has been working for it has been a powerful country throughout the so called golden period of democracy.

Europe, the other model of democracy, has a queen or a king in nearly every significant country.

While exercising its powers in the Gulf region the so called democratic world focuses on its own economic and military interests - if democracy suits that fine. If not fine again.

India might not be the corruption capital of the world but it certainly close to that.
Is that a gift of democracy or it is an independent phenomena?
Whatever be the case the fact remains that this bright idea called democracy has not tackled the corruption problem in India.

In spite of the fact that many people have patted India on its back for its democracy some painful truths are too obvious.

Indira Gandhi was scared that General Sam Manekshaw might make a coup.

She herself declared emergency in mid seventies of last century.

Yesterday some military units were conducting routine military exercise. People started fearing that military might be making a move towards a coup.

This is happening in India and now.

Of course no routine work gets done in India unless you use some democratic means - like demonstrations.
So is it any different from anarchy?
In anarchy there is no rule of law.
Hence every one is a law into himself or herself.
In democracy you have to do every thing yourself.

[Eujacwta]

This is a disease, like malaria, where a person, a group, a country or a whole civilization thinks that democracy is the cure for all ills of society. The basic tenet of democracy is that collective decisions must be taken according to the majority wishes.

there is a great irony in this idea too as it is generally attributed to the French enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who used to habitually wear Muslim clothes and was (according to some sources) suspected of having become a Muslim towards the end of his life.

an interesting chapter on him is included in the Influence of Islam on World Civilization by professor Ziauddin Ahmed.

[twinaircant]

there is a great irony in this idea too as it is generally attributed to the French enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who used to habitually wear Muslim clothes and was (according to some sources) suspected of having become a Muslim towards the end of his life.

Interesting idea. I had heard, here at SF itself, about Newton and Gibbon, but Rousseau is newer still.
an interesting chapter on him is included in the Influence of Islam on World Civilization by professor Ziauddin Ahmed.

[venediene]

The thing is, you are mistaken in thinking the countries you mentioned are democracies (except for India; I'm not really sure what things are like over there). They might call themselves that, but they are effectively plutarchies (plutocracy/oligarchy). All power and all wealth is in the hands of a small number of people. In fact, nowadays even nation-states are irrelevant at the highest levels of power. Goldman Sachs already owned America, now it's slowly but surely adding Greece, Italy and the rest of Europe to its list of assets. They cause untold amounts of suffering around the world to enrich themselves. You've heard about rising food prices? Engineered by speculators at "financial institutions" like Goldman. Rising price of oil? Same story.

So the theoretical shortcoming of the majority oppressing the minority isn't really seen in most "democracies". It's the opposite, it's just that most of the population is too myopic to see it. Without taqwa, power corrupts, so even if the leaders in a democracy are initially elected, they will soon began to collude with other powerful individuals to consolidate their power. People vote for candidates who are barely distinguishable from each other. And because the populace is so stupid and uneducated, they continue with the charade term after term. iPad and Hollywood is the new panem et circenses from which they extract themselves long enough every few years to vote for whoever is getting the most media attention.

Edit: Just re-read your second post, Maripat. I guess we're on the same page.

[Qxsumehj]

If this thread is just about critiquing democracy then here are some good books to read

Ancient beliefs and modern superstitions by Martin lings, in which he argues that modern enlightened democratic man is inherently superstitious when compared to traditional man.

Crisis of the Modern world by Rene Guenon, in which he argues that the modern world and democracy are the reasons for the troubles in the world, and his other book 'Reign of Quantity', following the same theme in more depth. from amazon: "but after the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the 'rise of the masses'-Guénon predicts a reign of 'inverted quality' just before the end of the age: the triumph of the 'counter-initiation', the kingdom of Antichrist" The gist being that democracy is inherently satanic. We can see this today, the emergence of a system of inverted quality, everything that was considered ugly and evil in the past, is now considered 'cool', trendy, or 'choice', 'this is who i am, YOU MUST ACCEPT ME!!!' (referring to the plethora of sexual degenerate subcultures in the modern west.)


And The Republic of Plato contains a good critique of democracy, probably the one that has stuck with me the most. He arranges systems of government into 5 categories, the second lowest being democracy, which he says is one step away from tyranny, the lowest. The reason is because democracy is already in essence a tyranny of the masses, its a swirling mass of uncontrolled desires and wants, which eventually leads to chaos. It doesnt take much for a demagogue to arise, promising the people whatever they want in return for leadership, so you have a tyrant.

The only reason why this seems to be happening very slowly in the west, compare freedoms 100 years ago compared to now, is because we have checks and balances, the legislatures dont have unlimited power, and there is an invisible control effected upon the system, just look at how in anglo saxon countries there are usually only 2 political parties which are basically the same, offering the illusion of choice, but we can see now the time coming when liberal democracies will be complete tyrannies.

A pure democracy like that in ancient greece cannot last a long time, and that of athens itself only lasted less than a century, this is because you have countless numbers of competing desires and parties vying with one another for power and the fulfillment of these desires. This is why plato uses the allegory of the soul to critique democracy. It is like the disordered soul, the one in which the lesser desires control the ruling faculty, Reason, or the 'Aql, forcing it into the service of fulfilling desires. Plato argues that ideally it should be the inverse, the intellect should rule over the desires of the lower soul, this is necessary in order to achieve the good and to live a virtuous life. The soul in which desire predominates is like that of an animal, such a man is controlled by his desires, whipped and dragged around by them like one would be by a pack of wild dogs. One must control his passions, or end up a tyrant to his own soul.

So like this, the correct way of ordering a society is for the most qualified, and the most suited to rule. This is the same in islam. The unqualified people, the ignorant and stupid, are not entitled to a say in governance. Why should they be? (note that the sahaba had discussions on who should rule, but it was only the most senior and most learned of them, not everyone was considered)

The average has no qualifications to run a country, and their goals amount to little more than 'more money, cheaper food and entertainment for me!'. This is why a democracy doesn't work, because these lower desires predominate, the doing of the Good is disregarded (note that our ulema have defined 'the good' as that which is in accordance with Allah's commands and bad as that which is not) or redefined as what ever accords with an individual's desires. This is one reason why we find in western countries the idea of moral relativism becoming common; if there is no transcendent reality by which to measure the good, then goodness loses its meaning, and you end up with a society of godless hedonists slowing decaying, waiting for the day the system collapses under its own weight.

[Eujacwta]

The thing is, you are mistaken in thinking the countries you mentioned are democracies (except for India; I'm not really sure what things are like over there). They might call themselves that, but they are effectively plutarchies (plutocracy/oligarchy). All power and all wealth is in the hands of a small number of people. In fact, nowadays even nation-states are irrelevant at the highest levels of power. Goldman Sachs already owned America, now it's slowly but surely adding Greece, Italy and the rest of Europe to its list of assets. They cause untold amounts of suffering around the world to enrich themselves. You've heard about rising food prices? Engineered by speculators at "financial institutions" like Goldman. Rising price of oil? Same story.

So the theoretical shortcoming of the majority oppressing the minority isn't really seen in most "democracies". It's the opposite, it's just that most of the population is too myopic to see it. Without taqwa, power corrupts, so even if the leaders in a democracy are initially elected, they will soon began to collude with other powerful individuals to consolidate their power. People vote for candidates who are barely distinguishable from each other. And because the populace is so stupid and uneducated, they continue with the charade term after term. iPad and Hollywood is the new panem et circenses from which they extract themselves long enough every few years to vote for whoever is getting the most media attention.

Edit: Just re-read your second post, Maripat. I guess we're on the same page.

It is true Representative Democracy as it stands today is just play acting Democracy

whoever wins the elections the people who are the greatest investors in big business and the banks remain in power

Presidents and Prime Ministers (even if they have good intentions) have to play the game and just end up as the puppets of the Capitalist Elites, just like their predecessors.

[Eromaveabeara]

Salam 'Aleykum,

We were discussing "Democracy & Voting" here, maybe there's something that interests you:
http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthrea...ly-Haram/page2

[twinaircant]

TS.
uber_mensch.
This was very informative post. Many thoughts came to my mind but I'll resist expression so as not to spoil the taste of the points you have made.

[Eujacwta]

al-Salamu 'Aleykum,

In Egypt they voted for the Islamists whether Ikhwanis or Salafis and now the Muslims dominate their parliament, whereas if they had left the voting, the Copts and liberals and Heretics would have taken over and Islam would then be in a much worse condition than before.

By bringing the Muslims and dominating the so called parliament you can influence the code of the country and alter the Constitution to suit Shari'ah and little by little you'd have exactly what you want. Because Shari'ah is a set of divine laws and the constitution is a set of man made laws and in many occasions or in most these two do not contradict one another, so creating an Islamic state is done simply by inserting the necessary divine laws into the constitution and removing or editing the laws that conflict with them.

And parliament is a place where the representatives of the people meet and this is an Islamic concept As the Prophet (SAWS) said in the Hadith:
لا يستقيم الناس الا بعرفاء
and
اخرجوا الىّ من بينكم اثنى عشر نقيبا
and
أخرجوا الىّ عرفائكم

Also no one should expect a successful Islamic state that is established within a week, this is achieved step by step and not all at once, when Ameer al-Mumineen 'Umar bin 'Abdul-'Aziz came and wanted to fix many of the corrupt rituals and laws that were practiced upon in the Caliphate of some of those who preceded him, his son came and asked him: "O father, you have now received the pledge and the affair of the Muslims is in your hands, yet I see so much evil and corruption taking place everyday?" So Mawlana 'Umar (rah) replied: "O son is it not enough for you that each and everyday your father revives a Sunnah and buries a Bid'ah?" he continued:"If I were to reform ALL of this matter at once I fear that they would ALL abandon this matter at once."

The origin of the matter is that in Islam the one who is supposed to work in the field of politics is supposed to be a Faqih, not necessarily a 'Alim but he is supposed to rule on matters from a solid Islamic base and perspective, this man can reach the position of leadership either by a bloody rebellion, or by simply voting him and his likes in there, and this is more peaceful and thus recommended.

In Islam we say that we are told to settle our affairs through Shura, but Allah (swt) and his Prophet (SAWS) did not inform us of a specific means to fulfill Shura, the pious predecessors for example used to leave the matter to the Mouhajirun mainly and the people of Madinah, they would consult each-other and they would choose the Caliph, in our days there are no "Mouhajirun and people of Madinah" so voting through ballot boxes can be the most appropriate way to fulfill Shura.

When the majority of believers vote for a man then Allah would be pleased with their decision and this nation cannot agree upon falsehood, and the Prophet (SAWS) used to consult his companions and in several occasions left his own opinion then settled for the opinion of the majority. The wisdom behind this is that the Prophet (SAWS) decided that the people are knowledgeable about the affairs of their worldly lives and this is the verse of Allah in his book:

{And their affair is (decided) by mutual consultation}

Once the infallible decided on a matter or received divine inspiration regarding a matter no Muslim can reject it and he who does has rejected Allah in the process. As for the Sahaba (ra) whom Allah has revealed in his divine inspiration that he is pleased with them and whom the Prophet (SAWS) described as the best of generations, they had an admirable experience with Shura and they settled their affairs in the best of manners but as we said their method is not applicable today.

Now one asks, can anyone in the Islamic lands vote for any candidate he likes? Can a christian vote for a christian or a Fasiq vote for another Fasiq? certainly not as there are usually committees (even in western democracies) and this Islamic committee or in other words Ahlul-Halli wal-'Aqdi chooses appropriate qualified candidates that have gathered the 10 necessary conditions. [The committee is usually the top 'Ulemaa in the Muslim lands]

As for the philosophy of democracy according to its original western definition and understanding then this is prohibited as it contradicts Islam and Shari'ah, but if we use our own Islamic definition for this then democracy/voting is no more than a tool that can be used for good as well as bad, just like a TV or a computer can be used for good or bad, so democracy can be used to fill the gap that was left after the prophet (SAWS) and his companions (ra) passed away and it can be used in a way that the majority of believers can vote for the candidate they deem worthy of any position.

Now the situation gets very complicated and reaches a scholarly level when people get into the issue of "Is democracy currently the available alternative to tyranny and oppression? Would adopting democracy in our current time and situation bring us more good and repel much harm from the nation of Islam?"

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthrea...ly-Haram/page2

these is a lot of sense spoken here

A long time ago I studied with the HT for a year or so and most of the people I met who associated with them were nice Muslims, but they had a few very confused ideas in one or two areas.

I think perhaps the most harmful of these was the idea that Muslims should not vote in elections in an un-Islamic system even if they can help promote Muslim interests through voting.

Muslims don't have to accept the ideology of secular democracy to vote - they can do it pragmatically knowing that they are simply using an opportunity to support Muslim interests in what may itself actually be a kufr system.

[Paul Bunyan]

This is a disease, like malaria, where a person, a group, a country or a whole civilization thinks that democracy is the cure for all ills of society. The basic tenet of democracy is that collective decisions must be taken according to the majority wishes. Of course there is a competing view that collective decisions must be strictly according to the wishes of God Almighty but God is an anathema to the philosophy of democracy and to bolster this many democracies qualify themselves as secular democracies. But we digress. Every democratic society has so far ignored the fundamental instability of the idea of democracy. The simple statement of this instability is the question what if the majority decides to do injustice to the minority. Then what? The situation is completely consistent with democracy. It is inconsistent with some thing but not with the fundamental tenet of democracy. Of course the intellectual defense of democracy has been under the control of those people who will, undemocratically-because any intellectual group by and large will be a minority, just not entertain above doubt about the stability of democracy. They would like to push another idea down your throat that democracy also means, as an inherent mechanism, protection of minority rights. This basically does not address the misgivings because the question still remain as to who will implement the clause of protection of the minority rights - the majority being inclined to do otherwise. Curiously there is a practical example where above scenario has been played out in reality-in Germany between the two world wars. This is a modern miracle where an empirical evidence has been made light of by profound theories. The irony being that events of Germany are very much part of the collective memory - for certain obvious reasons. In fact in the west, the nursery and the breeding ground for this experiment, the things reached a certain level of smugness in this regard where people started predicting the end of democracy or end of history. On the face of it these two things, indeed it is one and the same thing - just two sides of the same coin, might sound antagonistic to the idea of democracy but they are not. These ideas, nay this idea, is just a complacent evaluation of democracy-a declaration of success of the idea of democracy. The end of democracy idea belongs to Fareed Zakaria, ironically son of Dr Rafiq Zakaria - a man who had worried about the state of Muslims in India in most of his life, while the idea of end of history belongs to Francis Fukuyama. In the latter avatar this idea gave rise to the idea of clash of civilizations a la Samuel Huntington. This is, in line with American obsession with the most grand scenarios, the pinnacle of the instability inherent in democracy. The largest stage on which you can play the game of democracy is the world stage and Huntington occupied that-in his thought space. The target happened to be Islam and Muslims. And the idea was not completely devoid of complete physical implementation. European and American civilizations (with tacit approval or express approval) via the instrument called NATO have played havoc in many locations belonging to the society that was Huntington's target. To some extent these forces are in the retreat mode, and God make their retreat complete, but there is another similar instability that has been looming large on the horizon of a sizable population adhering to Islam. This is the case of India. There is an organization that has been functioning for around ninety years and whose spiritual guide thought that actions of Adolf Hitler, to them, were worth pondering and profit by. To complete the irony these elements have full support of the survivors of the earlier manifestation of the democratic instability.

aoa
bro some paragraphs would be appropriate here no?

[kHy87gPC]

i was unable to read some of the previous posts because of the presentation, but have people contemplated or do they choose to forget....The appointment of Abu Bakr (RA) was democratic, so was that of Umar(RA) and so was that of Uthman(RA)....democratic upto the appointment of Yazeed lanati..................

.....guess what we got once the ummah became undemocratic.......Hadrat Hussain's(RA) head on a pike..........sari dunya Hussain Hussain kare (the whole world is saying hussain hussain).

I don't know about other people but I wouldn't want to be ruled by a system that brings me the severed head of the grandson of my beloved prophet(pbuh).

Democracy is an islamic system. Democracy is THE islamic system. The methodology might be changed slightly in modern understanding of democracy.

So why are muslim's these days thinking islam as the opposite of democracy?

well, those in power wouldn't want to lose their power. Look at how majority of the "muslim" countries of the world are ruled today: Absolute monarchies or absolute presidencies, Is this islam??

who gave bayah to the current progeny of the al saud clan?

inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

[Paul Bunyan]

who gave bayah to the current progeny of the al saud clan?

take your sectarian bias towards najdis elsewhere...this is another failed attempt to instigate hatred for najdis in the minds of people, this time using the guise of criticizing their monarchy in a thread about democracy. please stop trying, you are too obvious.

[interbaoui]

i was unable to read some of the previous posts because of the presentation, but have people contemplated or do they choose to forget....The appointment of Abu Bakr (RA) was democratic, so was that of Umar(RA) and so was that of Uthman(RA)....democratic upto the appointment of Yazeed lanati..................

.....guess what we got once the ummah became undemocratic.......Hadrat Hussain's(RA) head on a pike..........sari dunya Hussain Hussain kare (the whole world is saying hussain hussain).

I don't know about other people but I wouldn't want to be ruled by a system that brings me the severed head of the grandson of my beloved prophet(pbuh).

Democracy is an islamic system. Democracy is THE islamic system. The methodology might be changed slightly in modern understanding of democracy.

So why are muslim's these days thinking islam as the opposite of democracy?

well, those in power wouldn't want to lose their power. Look at how majority of the "muslim" countries of the world are ruled today: Absolute monarchies or absolute presidencies, Is this islam??

who gave bayah to the current progeny of the al saud clan?

inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

You have no idea what you're talking about. The khilafah is not democratic. If it was, you're just providing more fodder for the Shi'as since 'Ali didn't "vote" for Abu Bakr . Was he a disenfranchised voter? The shoora is not the electorate.

[kHy87gPC]

it's not actually bias, if we are to talk about islamic systems of government then we have to start at the heart of Islam (makkah and medina) I don't really care for KSA as a whole but it just happens to be that the two holy cities are in KSA, I tried to keep the post short, but I did highlight monarchies as a plural and presidencies as a plural................

.......I also did point out what is happening in syria. I can also name governments of UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Jordan etc etc......

How are these monarchies "islamically sanctioned".

I do accept the the wahabi najdis are bad maybe as bad as some other "muslim" leaders in the ummah, but that is a different topic. We can also discuss Quran 35: 6 and Tafsir Jalalyn's take on this verse, but that is not the topic here.

It's easy to side step the issue here and bring up the najdis, as the argumentation i give is strong for Democracy in Islam, and it is hard to refute it for people who think democracy is the opposite of islamic way of government.

Did you know Abu Bakr(ra) was nominated as a candidate for caliph before he was ELECTED? YES elected!

so how is democracy un islamic?

[kHy87gPC]

You have no idea what you're talking about. The khilafah is not democratic. If it was, you're just providing more fodder for the Shi'as since 'Ali didn't "vote" for Abu Bakr . Was he a disenfranchised voter? The shoora is not the electorate.

Democracy isn't one rigid system of government. The democratic government of UK is different to that of the USA, both of which are different to that of Germany.

Islamic also has a different form of democracy. Doesn't mean fodder for the shias as the system they propose is that of a kind of monarchy whereas as demonstrated the Islamic system is democracy, well atleast before yazeed it was.

Was Imam Hussain not fighting for Democracy (i.e. right for the ummah to choose) or was he(RA) fighting for his own kingship? I think the former myself.

salam

[interbaoui]

it's not actually bias, if we are to talk about islamic systems of government then we have to start at the heart of Islam (makkah and medina) I don't really care for KSA as a whole but it just happens to be that the two holy cities are in KSA, I tried to keep the post short, but I did highlight monarchies as a plural and presidencies as a plural................

.......I also did point out what is happening in syria. I can also name governments of UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Jordan etc etc......

How are these monarchies "islamically sanctioned".

I do accept the the wahabi najdis are bad maybe as bad as some other "muslim" leaders in the ummah, but that is a different topic. We can also discuss Quran 35: 6 and Tafsir Jalalyn's take on this verse, but that is not the topic here.

It's easy to side step the issue here and bring up the najdis, as the argumentation i give is strong for Democracy in Islam, and it is hard to refute it for people who think democracy is the opposite of islamic way of government.

Did you know Abu Bakr(ra) was nominated as a candidate for caliph before he was ELECTED? YES elected!

so how is democracy un islamic?

Because democracy means that the people decide when the khilafah is not determined in this manner. The sahaba didn't go to the ballot boxes to cast a vote for who the next khalifa should be. Democracy is also an extremely flawed system, where an uneducated majority can overrule a learned minority and thus lead to imbalance and downfall. Monarchies, albeit un-Islamic, have been shown to be more stable than democracies. Khilafah incorporates what makes monarchies stable: the khalifa rules until death. So, hypothetically speaking, if there was a general election in Pakistan under what you understand to be a khilafah, would you want a Zardari ruling Pakistan until death? Of course not.

Democracies leave room for correction by limiting terms, but then this makes those in power care less about the country and more about re-electability.

Democracy isn't one rigid system of government. The democratic government of UK is different to that of the USA, both of which are different to that of Germany.

Islamic also has a different form of democracy. Doesn't mean fodder for the shias as the system they propose is that of a kind of monarchy whereas as demonstrated the Islamic system is democracy, well atleast before yazeed it was.

salam

As I said, democracy means that the layperson votes, regardless of how informed he or she is. Why do you think Bush got elected twice, despite much opposition from the academia, both political and scientific?

[kHy87gPC]

Because democracy means that the people decide when the khilafah is not determined in this manner. The sahaba didn't go to the ballot boxes to cast a vote for who the next khalifa should be. Democracy is also an extremely flawed system, where an uneducated majority can overrule a learned minority and thus lead to imbalance and downfall. Monarchies, albeit un-Islamic, have been shown to be more stable than democracies. Khilafah incorporates what makes monarchies stable: the khalifa rules until death. So, hypothetically speaking, if there was a general election in Pakistan under what you understand to be a khilafah, would you want a Zardari ruling Pakistan until death? Of course not.

Democracies leave room for correction by limiting terms, but then this makes those in power care less about the country and more about re-electability.





As I said, democracy means that the layperson votes, regardless of how informed he or she is. Why do you think Bush got elected twice, despite much opposition from the academia, both political and scientific?

OK, so at the time of the sahabas (RA), it was obvious who the "leaders" were and who people would accept. If the chaliphate was to come back now, how do we decide who the ummah are willing to accept in such a high position of Khalifa?

How do we decide who makes up the shura, and who decides, who decides, who decides, who decides the shura (repeated on purpose).

It was obvious at Abu Bakr's(RA) appointment because they would be from the sahaba of the prophet.

Was Imam Hussain not fighting for Democracy (i.e. right for the ummah to choose the caliph) or was he(RA) fighting for his own kingship? I think the former myself.

Subhanllah

[Eujacwta]

it's not actually bias, if we are to talk about islamic systems of government then we have to start at the heart of Islam (makkah and medina) I don't really care for KSA as a whole but it just happens to be that the two holy cities are in KSA, I tried to keep the post short, but I did highlight monarchies as a plural and presidencies as a plural................

.......I also did point out what is happening in syria. I can also name governments of UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Jordan etc etc......

How are these monarchies "islamically sanctioned".

I do accept the the wahabi najdis are bad maybe as bad as some other "muslim" leaders in the ummah, but that is a different topic. We can also discuss Quran 35: 6 and Tafsir Jalalyn's take on this verse, but that is not the topic here.

It's easy to side step the issue here and bring up the najdis, as the argumentation i give is strong for Democracy in Islam, and it is hard to refute it for people who think democracy is the opposite of islamic way of government.

Did you know Abu Bakr(ra) was nominated as a candidate for caliph before he was ELECTED? YES elected!

so how is democracy un islamic?

Prophet Muhammad (saws) once told us that...

"There will be Nabuwa with Rehma (prophethood with Mercy).

The there will be Khilafah with Ba’yah (pledge). Then Allah will change it when He wishes.

Then there will be Mulkan ‘Adoodan (Rule by force). Then Allah will change it when He wishes.

Then there will be Mulkan Jabriya (against people’s will). Then Allah will change it when He wishes.

Then there will be Khilafah Ala Minhajin Nabuwa (on the path of prophethood). The earth and the sky will bestow their treasures."

(Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal)

InshaAllah we will have reached the last part of the hadith soon.

[interbaoui]

OK, so at the time of the sahabas (RA), it was obvious who the "leaders" were and who people would accept. If the chaliphate was to come back now, how do we decide who the ummah are willing to accept in such a high position of Khalifa?

How do we decide who makes up the shura, and who decides, who decides, who decides, who decides the shura (repeated on purpose).

It was obvious at Abu Bakr's(RA) appointment because they would be from the sahaba of the prophet.

Was Imam Hussain not fighting for Democracy (i.e. right for the ummah to choose the caliph) or was he(RA) fighting for his own kingship? I think the former myself.

Subhanllah

Again, democracy means the people decide. Imam Hussain was not fighting for this. There were people who were willing to support him for khilafah, which is the reason he went to Kufa. Abu Bakr was decided as the leader not by some sort of popular vote, but because people were willing to pledge themselves to his rule.