Islam and Democracy in the Twenty-first Century

A Book Review of Islam and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century by Tauseef Parray

Tauseef Parray’s recent study, “Islam and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century,” offers a comprehensive examination of the relationship between Islam and democracy. The book comprises seven chapters, excluding the introduction, drawing from the insights of thinkers and scholars from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, particularly those from Arab and South Asian regions. Despite recognizing elements of compatibility between Islam and democracy, the study also acknowledges the fundamental distinctions between Western democratic principles and Islamic democratic ideals, such as the source of sovereignty and the role of divine law. Overall, Parray’s work offers a thorough and concise exploration (though there are some limitations, as discussed near the end of this article).

Chapter One covers the conceptual description of democracy in Western and Islamic political thought. The author discusses the various faces of contemporary Islam (reformist and modernist thought), including the process of democratisation and how democratic principles have been interpreted and implemented in various Muslim-majority countries today.

In Chapter Two, Parray begins to examine the historical roots of democratic norms within Islam, notably focusing on the principle of Shura, a type of consultative decision, and its relevance in governance. He also discusses key democratic concepts such as Khilafah (caliphate), Ijmaʾ (consensus), and Bayʿah (pledge), arguing for their compatibility with modern democratic ideals. Through historical and contemporary examples, including the ‘Constitution’ of Medina (though there is a debate on what term to use for the document, the parts that have been preserved include agreements with the inhabitants of Medina, including Jewish tribes), Parray illustrates how Islamic governance has embraced inclusivity and participatory decision-making. 

In Chapter Three, Parray provides a survey of how nineteenth and twentieth-century Muslim thinkers viewed the compatibility of Islam and democracy. He focuses on Arab modernists such as Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, Muhammad Abduh, Jamaluddin Afghani, Rashid Rida, and Malek Bennabi. They believed in reforming Islam and saw the concept of Shura as evidence of Islam’s compatibility with democracy. Parray highlights Abduh as a key figure in promoting change and democracy in Islam, while Tahtawi emphasized the influence of European liberalism on Islamic conceptions of justice, rights, consultation, and equality. Afghani aimed to establish a religio-political system where people could participate in decision-making through elections and Shura.

In Chapter Four, Parray continues his exploration from chapter three, now focusing on the views of South Asian thinkers. Muhammad Iqbal, for example, advocated for a spiritual democracy rooted in Tawhid, while Abul Kalam Azad emphasized a universal Islamic caliphate. Mawdudi proposed “Theo-democracy,” a system whereby the Ummah collectively participated in governance and decision-making but sovereignty belonged to God. Fazlur Rahman and Amin Ahsan Islahi also stressed the importance of Shura, advocating for a democratic process within an Islamic framework that prioritized Qur’anic principles and moral accountability, while traditionalist scholars from the Deobandi school, like Ashraf Ali Thanvi and Mufti Shabbir Usmani, also emphasized Shura‘s importance but cautioned against reducing religious norms to political goals.

Chapter Five moves to the twenty-first century, featuring thinkers such as Fathi Osama, Dr. Israr Ahmad, Asghar Ali Engineer, Mawlana Wahid Uddin Khan, Sadek Jawad Suleiman, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Khurshid  Ahmad, Rashid Ghannouchi, Abdul Aziz Sachedina, and Abdul Karim Soroush. To give a brief overview, for example, Dr. Israr Ahmad built on the concept of “collective vicegerency of Muslims” to describe a model of governance where freedom and democracy are balanced by strict adherence to Shariʿah (Islamic law); that while Muslims are encouraged to participate in governance and make collective decisions, this authority was limited by their role as vicegerents (representatives) of God on Earth. Asghar Ali Engineer argued that Islam does not obstruct democracy; rather, it is dictators and monarchs who impede its practice. Wahidudin Khan argued Islam prescribed no specific political structure, viewing democracy as a compatible system at both social and political levels. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi supported the idea of democracy within the ethical and legal boundaries set by Shariah, emphasizing the use of ijtihad to adapt to changing circumstances.

Parray shifts focus in Chapter Seven to critiques of democracy, including the arguments of Sayyid Qutb, Taqi-al Din al-Nabhani, and Abadal-Qadim Zallum of Hizb al-Tahrir. Parray also includes other academics such as Abdul Rashed Moten, a professor of political science Malaysia. Among those skeptical of the compatibility between Islam and democracy, some considered democracy to be Haram (forbidden) in Islam, contradictory with the idea of divine sovereignty. Here, the concept of Shura was not to be equated with popular sovereignty or Western democracy, where people have unrestricted legislative power. For example, Parray notes that although Sayyid Qutb viewed Shura as a means of community participation, Qutb pointed to the example of the Surah Al-Shura, revealed during the Meccan period and long before the establishment of the Islamic state. Thus, it could not be the only reasoning to make a sense of compatibility between Islam and democracy. He also added that in organization and procedure, Shura can keep changing; i.e., that there was no fixed rule regarding Shura. To him, while there were some similarities between Islam and democracy, it did not mean both could work interchangeably.

Hizb-al-Tahrir (founded by Taqi-al-Din al-Nabhani, a pan-Islamic international organization) viewed Western democracy as one of idolatry. According to Nabhani, democracy was a human construct, antithetical to Islam’s basis of divine revelation and propagated by the West for the cultural invasion of Muslim lands. Abdul Rashed Moten also criticized democracy as a Western construct, imposed on Muslims to create its cultural hegemony, so whoever adopts this idea is a “Westernized Muslim Thinker.”

At the end of his concluding remarks, Parray ultimately argues that the real question is not about the compatibility of Islam and democracy; rather, it is about the relationship between Islam and democracy, referencing Iranian professor of sociology Asef Bayat:

“Nothing intrinsic to Islam or any other religion makes it inherently democratic or undemocratic, peaceful or violent. It depends on the intricate ways in which the living faithful perceive, articulate, and live through their faiths: some deploy their religions in exclusive, authoritarian, and violent terms, while others read in them justice, peace, equality, representation, and pluralism.”

While the book provides a broad overview of the literature on Islam and democracy, a significant portion of the thinkers and scholars discussed are Arab or non-South Asian. This relative emphasis on Arab modernists and reformers does not give equal weight to South Asian contributions, particularly from traditionalist scholars like those from the Deobandi school nor including emerging voices like Mufti Taqi Uthmani and Mufti Yasir Nadeem al Wajidi. A more comprehensive examination of these perspectives is necessary.

The book also neglects discussion of individualism’s dominance in democracy and its contrast with Islamic values, particularly in terms of divine morality versus popular morality. As such, the book struggles with a superficial treatment of democracy, failing to specify which form of democracy it refers to, considering the diversity of democratic models worldwide. While Parray discusses Shura heavily as evidence of Islam’s compatibility with democracy, the book falls short of offering substantive solutions to the structural flaws inherent in liberal democracy, or its majoritarian problems.

To explain this point further, majorly, there are five models of democracy: electoral, liberal, deliberative, participatory, and egalitarian. A major challenge to democracy lies in populism’s emergence and its authoritarian tendencies, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the United States. A recent empirical analysis ponders over the erosive potential of populist emergence, particularly towards electoral, liberal, and deliberative democracies, by weakening institutions and challenging norms, potentially undermining protections for minority rights and reasoned discourse.¹ However, populism does not seem to enhance the participatory or egalitarian dimensions of democracy, contrary to some theoretical expectations. Furthermore, these negative effects of populism appear less severe in democracies where institutions and practices in each model are already robust, suggesting that stronger institutions can somewhat buffer against populist erosion.

In contrast to these models, Islam requires the establishment of Allah’s sovereignty. This framework forms the basis of an Islamic model, where the ruler is accountable both to God and to the community of Muslims, who collectively entrust him with their authority. Unlike populism, this “dual accountability” provides a check on leaders by requiring adherence to shared religious values and obligations toward justice and equality. Leaders cannot arbitrarily claim to be the sole voice of the people but are answerable to the ethical expectations of the community, who in turn have the responsibility to uphold justice and moral standards collectively. This shared responsibility discourages the kind of polarized “us vs. them” rhetoric that populist leaders often rely on. Instead, it fosters a sense of collective stewardship over society, where all members are entrusted to uphold community well-being. Since Islamic sovereignty emphasizes God’s rule, it rejects the concept of leaders having ultimate authority based on popularity alone, as they are chosen to serve a divine mandate, which acts as a check on personal ambition or autocracy, prioritizing a vision that seeks long-term ethical and social objectives, rooted in justice, welfare, and public interest.

While Parray’s book discusses Shura heavily as evidence of Islam’s compatibility with democracy and offers a broad survey of perspectives, it falls short of offering substantive solutions to the majoritarian problems inherent in liberal democracy. It fails to identify structural flaws in the Western democratic model where Islam could offer solutions to its challenges, or even alternatives, raising an essential question: is relationship the better question, as opposed to compatibility? There is a need for further scholarship addressing whether Islam’s governance model might be better respected as a unique, self-contained paradigm.

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1. Saskia Pauline Ruth-Lovell & Sandra Grahn, “Threat or corrective to democracy? The relationship between populism and different models of democracy” (Oct. 25, 2022), European Journal of Political Research, https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6765.12564. [↩]