Is there a "democratic" way to an Islamic State?

Dr.Omar Akhtar
An ‘Islamic State’ is a much maligned, misunderstood, term. It means a violent, under-educated, ‘backward,’ unkempt group of Mullahs to some people, to others it is the eternal utopia. In between lies the truth, the fact that an Islamic State is a bastion of justice, peace, and true ‘freedom,’ where people of all religions co-exist in a harmonious and socially productive relationship that works for the common good, and live under the rule of the just law of Allah.
The path to such a state is not a simple ‘regime change’ brought on by religious or patriotic fervour; it is not the product of a revolution that occurs overnight. It cannot be imposed only, it has to be adopted. In the universal adoption of the laws and tenets of the Islamic state by the people to be governed by it, is the true success of the model.
But how can such a model be accepted and adopted by ‘all’ the people of a particular region, willing to establish the rule of Islamic law? In other words, what are the pre-requisites for the establishment and success of the Islamic state?
Without going in to the details, the pre-requisites can be summed up by the following term: good Muslims. A good Muslim cannot be defined in a simple line, but what can be said is this: one who follows to the best of his/her ability the Quran and Sunnah, and espouses such following among others in his community, counts as a good Muslim. If one intends to be a good Muslim, what does he/she need to do? A short list: needs to be literate, well-versed about the Quran, Sunnah, and some basic parts of Fiqah, has to have a disciplined approach to the practise and learning of his religion, and has to be honest to himself, his community, and his Allah.
On the other hand, the other available option for the working of the state, ‘democracy,’ entails a plural approach, not one based on consensus for the universal good. Were a group of Muslims to set out on a journey to use the democratic path to establish a state on Islamic principle, they would be doomed to fail. The reasons.
First, the democratic approach, as is practiced in India, is a ‘first-past-the-post’ system, in which the candidate for a particular region is elected in the event that he secures the maximum number of votes polled in that area on election day. Key words candidate, votes polled, election day. Candidate? Who determines one’s candidacy? The people? Party? In the ‘democratic’ set-up, any one who thinks he is capable enough, and has enough money, can fight the election… so we see dummy candidates with unfamiliar names on the electoral list who fight to confuse the people, simply to defeat another candidate, or we see the unread wife or mother of a previous candidate fighting the election, to ensure continuity. Electoral politics in India has seen the rise of a criminal-politician nexus to the extent that criminals turn to politics to control the law-enforcing agencies, and save themselves. Such a free-for-all approach has led to the serious dumbing-down of politics in places where literacy and awareness are low. In places where literacy and awareness are high, the dumbing-down is on a different level, one that I will come to later. Votes polled? So the candidate with the maximum votes on the day of the election wins. How many people vote? Around 55-60%, of adults vote, of which, in most triangular contests, the winner has around 40% of the vote, or only 20-25% of the support of the eligible electorate. The remaining 75% did not want the winner at all. In the present Lok Sabha, the ruling INC, has an electoral vote of 26.7%, and only 150 seats out of 543, and yet rules the country. How can a method of governance where only a quarter of persons get what they want in terms of so-called lawmakers, be considered a success? If a good Muslim were to stand in the elections, the very issues he would raise, that of moral corruption, religious education, stricter law-enforcement, ‘Shariah,’ would be enough deterrent to an erring people to vote for him. If a majority of people enjoy watching un-Islamic programs on TV, then how can they vote for someone who would shut the TV?
The second argument against democracy: the inherent weakness of the method of government against attempts to hijack it by vested interests. In plain-speak: a majority of fools can rule over a minority of educated, intellectuals. It is for this reason that the powers that be wish not to rock the ‘democratic’ path. Not only is democracy a path to power, but understand its workings, and it will be a path to KEEP power from the people. The people do not rule themselves; they are ruled over by the ones who can keep fooling them the longest.
If one thinks that education is a method of strengthening democracy, then read this: a majority of French who voted against the EU constitution was swayed by fears over the ‘Polish’ plumber, who would take their jobs. It was an emotional, baseless, and fear-mongering ploy by the Euro-skeptics, to defeat the EU constitution. But it worked in a democracy, and the constitution was defeated, 60:40. Similarly in the Presidential elections of 2000 in the US, the electoral ballot was altered in many states to include voting on gay-rights and abortion laws, both deeply divisive issues in the US, along with the Presidential vote. Gov George Bush, who had campaigned against abortion and gay-rights, won the election. Many voters later said that the presence of those issues on the ballot, emotionally forced them to alter, at the very last minute, their decision to vote for Al Gore.
Democracy? Where you can sway the people over emotive issues, and make them forget about the basic, bread-and-butter issues that concern them. Herein lays the limitation of this path to an Islamic state. Yes, emotive issues can be brought up to challenge established parties, and bring a ‘Muslim’ party to win, but for how long can that be sustained, when the voters themselves are not willing to follow the paths of Islam, and when they are vulnerable to threats from other, ‘secular’ fronts?
The third argument against the democratic path is that democracy believes that every individual knows what is best for him/her. This model has some success as far as democracy in Europe is concerned, especially in the UK, where the electorate is educated, aware, and alert to the designs of politics. But even in such a comprehensive system, you had a Prime Minister who could ‘spin’ a news story and sell an unpopular war to the country, and survive the episode to win another election, as Tony Blair did in 2005. An Islamic model believes that the society must take collective decisions, and have collective responsibility for its actions, and determine collectively what is good for the society, in the light of the Quran and Sunnah. The Prophet (SAW), said, ‘He is not one among us, who does not want for his neighbour, what he wants for himself.’ If one has the true interests of the community at heart, then it becomes tougher to vote for convicted criminals, known drunkards, alleged murderers, and two-faced cheats.
An Islamic nation cannot be built upon an electoral victory. It needs to be built from bottom-up and top-down. As the people align themselves against common evil, and work for the common good, as they educate their children in social and moral responsibility, and as they work for the pleasure of Allah, they will construct the first pillar of the Islamic state. But that is not all.
An Islamic state is also based on the co-existing functioning of an executive, who is not merely an administrator, but the leader of the people in every sense; piety, sincerity, honesty, closeness to Allah, and every other aspect humanly possible. It is a pitiable fact that the leaders of the present day Muslim ‘democracies’ are too far away from this ideal. After all, the pious ones in a Muslim society these days will dare not venture into terrain where they are held responsible for the whole community, knowing well the punishment for poor performance is Allah’s Wrath.