Islam and Elections

2004 Background Paper (Continued)


Notes

1. See Associated Press report at www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1076742,00.html

2. For the report online, go to www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/english2003.html

3. Ibid.

4. http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/ articles/2003/11/07/1123147.xml

5. For an excellent appraisal of the early history of elections in the Muslim world, see James Piscatori, “Islam, Islamists, and the Electoral Principle in the Middle East,” a presentation given at a conference held by the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden, the Netherlands. The full text is available online at www.isim.nl/files/paper_piscatori.pdf

6. For an analysis of past Muslim thinking on democracy, see Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

7. Richard W. Bulliet, “The Crisis Within Islam,” The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2002.

8. www.islamia.com/Essential%20Islam/Sunni%20Clasroom/vocabulary.htm

9. www.hilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=8045&TagID=29

10. www.islamic-state.org/fard/obligation3.shtml

11. Roderic H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923: The Impact of the West (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 103-6.

12. “A New Democracy, Enshrined in Faith,” New York Times, November 13, 2003. See also Feldman’s book After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), which reflects his legal and philosophical background as a New York University School of Law professor and a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice David Souter, as well as a deep sympathy for efforts to derive electoral institutions from Islamic principles.

13. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004

14. In 2001 Dr. James Piscatori published an article entitled “Islam, Islamists, and the Electoral Principle in the Middle East.” It was based on presentations he gave at a conference held by the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden, the Netherlands. The analysis in this section of the roots of modern electoral institutions in the Middle East and the Muslim world is substantially based on his arguments and selection of evidence.

15. James Piscatori defines Islamists as “Muslims who are committed to political action to implement what they regard as an Islamic agenda,” ibid., p. 8.

16. I.e., Bulliet, “The Crisis Within Islam,” op. cit. See also Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Modern Library, 2003).

17. Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), chapter 2.

18. Roderic H. Davison, “The Impact of the West,” Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), p. 100.

19. On the millets and equality, see generally ibid., pp. 112-132.

20. The Young Ottomans were a loosely identified group of intellectuals offering critiques of government during the Tanzimat period. They are to be distinguished from the Young Turks, the term given to Ottoman political activists and revolutionaries of the early twentieth century. For more on the Young Ottomans, see Serif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000).

21. Ibid., pp. 103-106.

22. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, p. 107.

23. Vanessa Martin, Islam and Modernism; The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1989), p. 93.

24. Cited in ibid., p. 98.

25. Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution; Shi‘ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905—1909 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 146. Bayat puts the minimum age at 30 whereas Martin (Islam and Modernism, p. 101) and Afary (The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, p. 64) list it as 25. The electoral law was revised by electoral committees once voting had begun; see Afary, p. 65.

26. Shaykh Fadlallah Nuri, “Refutation of the Idea of Constitutionalism” in John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito, eds., Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 293-294, 296. Those who argue that Islam does not provide for equality of individuals often base their argument on the Quranic verse, “Is one who is a believer like one who is godless? No, they are not equal (la yastawun)” (32:18).

27. See Ami Ayalon, Language and Change in the Arab Middle East; The Evolution of Modern Political Discourse (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 55 and 105.

28. See Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, Islam in the Modern National State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 161.

29. See Wael Hallaq, “Ahl al-hall wa’l ‘aqd,” in John L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), vol. 1, p. 53

30. (Cairo: Mu‘assasat al-Khanji, 6th ed., 1958). Ami Ayalon points out that the Lebanese historian Ra’if Khuri drew this distinction of the French after their revolution: Language and Change in the Arab Middle East, p. 44. See pp. 44—53 for an informed discussion of the citizen-subject debate in modern Arab political thought.

31. Al-Fatawa al-Islami min Dar al-Ifta’ al-Misriyya (Fatwas from the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta’) (Cairo: Wizarat al-Awqaf, 1481/1997), vol. 10, pp. 3779—3781. For the translation of Faraj’s polemic as well as informed commentary on it, see Johannes J.G. Jansen, The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East (New York: Macmillan, 1986).

32. Yusuf al-Qardawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla fi’l-Islam (On the Jurisprudence of the State in Islam) (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1419/1999), pp. 101—118; “Al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya wa Tatbiq al-Shari‘a” (“The Islamic Awakening and the Application of Islamic Law”), Liwa’ al-Islam (Standard of Islam), no. 42 (June 1987), p. 28.

33. Al-Qardawi was here responding—in a kind of verbal fatwa—on al-Jazira Channel, a Qatar-based television network, to a question on whether the Muslims of Belgium should participate in a government-sponsored election for a Muslim representative council there: Fi Su’al ila al-Duktur al-Shaykh Yusuf al-Qardawi hawl Mawdu‘ Intikhab Majlis Tamthili li-Muslimi Baljika (n.p., October 4, 1998).

34. Qardawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla, pp. 130-146, quotations (in order) at pp. 139, 142, and 131.

35. The Quranic justification for this is found in 12:40: “Dominion (al-hukmu) belongs to God alone.”

36. Sayyid Qutb, Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the Shade of the Qur’an) (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1399 AH/1979), vol. 1, Surat al-Baqara, pp. 60-61.

37. Ibid., p. 294. Cf. p. 291 (hurriyyat al-‘aqa’id).

38. Ibid., p. 294.

39. Ibid., p. 295.

40. Other Quranic invocations ostensibly cast the majority in a negative light as well: “Most people know not” (7:187); and “most people do not believe” (13:1). “Most people” in both verses is a translation of akthar al-nas, but whether this is equivalent to “majority” and has relevance to participatory politics as we know it is clearly a matter of substantial disagreement among interpreters of Islam today. Qutb, Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1405/1985), vol. 3, Surat al-An‘am, pp. 1195—1196. By way of contrast, Fahmi Huwaydi, a prolific Egyptian writer and journalist, believes that because this verse relates to a specific context, it does not refer adversely to modern notions of majority decision-making: al-Islam wa’l-Dimuqratiyya (Islam and Democracy)(Cairo: Markaz al-Ahram li’l-Tarjama wa’l-Nashr, 1413/1993), p. 209.

41. Sayyid Qutb, Ma‘alim fi’l-Tariq (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1988), p. 68.

42. Hassan al-Banna, “Mushkilatuna” (“Our Problems”) in Majmu‘at Rasa’il al-Imam Hasan al-Banna (Collection of Imam Hassan al-Banna’s Missives) (Cairo: Dar al-Shabab, n.d.), pp. 405-407.

43. Al-Munqidh (The Saviour), no. 24 (August 1990), p. 10; French translations of other Belhadj pieces from al-Munqidh are found in M. Al-Ahnaf, B. Bottiveau, and F. Frégosi, L’Algérie par ses Islamistes (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1991), pp. 87-103. Also see Hayder Ibrahim ‘Ali, al-Tayyarat al-Islamiyya wa Qadiyyat al-Dimuqratiyya (The Islamic Tendencies and the Question of Democracy) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-‘Arabiyya, 1996), pp. 268-269. For Belhadj’s general views, especially on jihad, see his Ghayat al-Murad fi Qadiyyat al-Jihad (Algeria: al-Jabha al-Islamiyya li’l-Inqadh, 1994).

44. Tahir Mahmood, Against Democracy (Bhalwal: At’her Publishers, 1999), pp. 338—340, quotations at p. 338. The author does not regard this book as academic, but rather as a “revolutionary tract” (back cover).

45. Ibid., pp. 69-81.

46. Ibid., pp. 341-352, quotations at pp. 347 and 351.

47. S. Abul A‘la Maududi, Political Theory of Islam, trans. by Khurshid Ahmad (Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd., 6th ed., 1980), pp. 21-25, 34-42, quotations at pp. 22 and 41.

48. Ibid., p. 43; Seyyed Vali Nasr notes that Mawdudi proposed a peculiar system of proportional representation that would effectively “allow for elections without candidates:” Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 95.

49. Burhanettin Duran, “Islamist Intellectuals and the Recent Elections in Turkey,” pp. 17-18. Paper presented at conference on “Islam and the Electoral Process.”

50. John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government, Amherst, (New York: Prometheus Books, 1986).

51. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” and Other Later Political Writings, Victor Gourevitch, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

52. The World Factbook 2003, a CIA publication. Available online at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook.

53. Ibid.

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