Muslim reformist scholars’ arguments for democracy independent of religious justification

Introduction

Social and political changes occurring in the Middle East during the modern period have caused many Muslim scholars and political activists to turn their attention to issues of democracy, human rights, religious freedom, and women’s rights, and frequently a heated debate about whether or not Islam is compatible with these principles has been at the center of their writings. In this context, while a range of modernist Muslim scholars have referred to Islamic principles such as shura (consultation) in their efforts to promote democratic participatory politics in Muslim-majority countries, most radical Islamist thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Qutb consider such specifically Islamic practices incompatible with the nature of Western liberal democracy. Indeed the question arises whether it is even possible to view Islamic principles such as shura as compatible with, or even similar to, democracy, or to what extent these principles might be employed as part of efforts to promote democratic values in the present world. More importantly, the question concerns whether it is enough to focus on such principles as a means of promoting democracy in Muslim-majority countries, especially in those countries in which Islam is the official religion, or whether the promotion of democracy might be achieved without religious justification. These are the main concerns that this paper seeks to address through examining the views of some reformist Muslim scholars such as Abdolkarim Soroush (b.1945), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (d.2010) and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari (d.1936).

My criteria when selecting Soroush, Shabestari, and Abu Zayd for examination in this study is their contributions in shaping a new trend in contemporary Islamic thought—a trend that revolves around a specific approach to discussing Islam and democracy in which promoting democracy beyond referring to religious concepts and sources is emphasized. All three scholars selected for this paper share some biographical details. They are all noted scholars who taught courses in humanities and Islamic studies. They encountered a significant level of resistance from conservative theologians of their countries because of their unorthodox views concerning the Qurʾan. ¹ While Shabestari has remained in his country so far, Soroush and Abu Zayd lived in exile for significant periods of time. After he left Egypt because of his conviction for apostasy by the Egyptian Court of Appeal, Abu Zayd was appointed a Professor of Islamic Studies at Leiden University and stayed there until his death. Soroush was employed as a visiting scholar, first at Harvard, then later at Princeton University, after he left Iran.

In the course of this article, I focus on the notion of shura since it has become a major focus of debate and contestation amongst Islamic scholars who seek to promote democracy within an Islamic framework. While some studies have provided overviews of the debate among Muslim thinkers about the compatibility or incompatibility of shura and democracy (Shavit 2010; Saeed 2014, 148–159; Soage 2014; Ellethy 2015), ² they have not fully discussed how this issue might be addressed from the perspective of some reformists such as Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari. In contrast with most previous scholarly work on the ideas of the aforementioned scholars (see Bennett 2005; Ghobadzadeh 2015; Kamrava 2008, 155–172; Bayat 2007, 91–96; Bayat 2013; Ghamari-Tabrizi 2008, 223–242; Dahlén 2003, Amirpur 2015, 35–65, 140–198; Shahibzadeh 2016, 111–151), this article seeks not only to frame their ideas as representative of a liberal turn among contemporary Muslim scholars, but to demonstrate how their political discourses are based on their theological-philosophical views, their methods of reading of the Qurʾan, and the distinctions they draw between the pre-modern and modern worldview.

This article aims to explore how, by using certain theological and philosophical approaches, Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari argue that democracy should be distinguished from classical Islamic principles such as shura since each of these emerged within the context of a historically-specific epistemological framework or paradigm. In other words, central to the political discourses of these scholars, I argue, is the idea that democratic values can be promoted within an Islamic framework without necessarily relying on holy texts and religious sources, or by identifying some concepts in these sources (such as the notion of shura) that seem to correspond in some way to modern democratic norms. I also pursue other political implications of this argument, and demonstrate that one theme found in the writings of Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari concerns their advocating a limited role for government in the religious affairs of citizens, and thus their sharp opposition to theocratic or strong religious models of governance.

Fundamental features of democracy

In this article the discussion of democracy is limited to its modern variants, ignoring those types of democracy found in the ancient world (such as classical Athens) and in the early modern period. As explained below, following the ideas of a number of scholars and political scientists, five elements or principles taken together form the foundation of the modern democratic state: (1) political equality, (2) the rule of law, (3) inclusive citizenship, (4) the holding of elections, and (5) the recognition of the rights of minorities.

Political equality: The principle of political equality means that all members of society (adult citizens) have the right to participate in government, usually through the election of legislative representatives (Dahl 1998, 39). A democratic system of government must provide equal opportunities for all eligible citizens to participate in this political process while ensuring that all votes carry equal weight. Members of a democratic system should not be in a position to threaten or coerce others into accepting certain proposals in the process of elections, and the right of citizens to lawfully express their concerns without the fear of punishment or reprisal should be respected (Dahl 1982, 11; Young 2000, 23).

Contemporary Muslim scholars’ views on the relation between shura and democracy

The practice of shura or consultation, whereby a tribal chief received the advice of the most prominent members of his tribe, was already practiced by Arabs during pre-Islamic times. Arab sheikhs often consulted the prominent members of their tribe (the shura council) about various matters, including war and peace-making, though members of the council had no real executive power or ability to impose their decisions on a sheikh (al-Baghdadi and Wheeler 2006, 406). The pre-Islamic notion of shura continued to be emphasized in the period in which the Prophet lived and the Qurʾan was revealed. The Qurʾan refers to shura in three verses: “consult with them about matters” (Q 3:159), “[for those] whose affairs are determined by mutual consultation” (Q 42:38) and “if they desire to wean the child by mutual consent and consultation, there is no blame upon them” (Q 2:233). While the first two verses refer to broader socio-political contexts, the last verse deals mainly with the need for mutual consultation between parents in regard to the care of their children. Although these verses do not specify the forms and methods of consultation, there are some reports found in the hadith and sira literature which describe the details of several matters about which the Prophet consulted with his companions. ⁴

Based on the references to consultation in the Qurʾan and similar references in extra- Qurʾanic sources in the Islamic tradition such as the hadith and sira literature, some Muslim thinkers of the modern period have sought to compare the modern Western concept of democracy with the Islamic concept of shura. Within the vast literature on shura and democracy produced by Muslim scholars of the modern era, three main schools of thought can be identified: (1) liberals or modernists who consider shura a kind of foundation for promoting Western-style democracies in Muslim-majority countries, creating the possibility of what Shavit (2017, 151) identified as “revelation-based democracy”; (2) traditionalist scholars and radical Islamists (such as jihadi-salafis) who sharply distinguish between shura and democracy, believing that they are incompatible and that the former should be followed, not the latter; and (3) moderate Islamist scholars who believe that shura is compatible with at least some though perhaps not all features of Western democracy.

In the mid-eighteenth century, certain Muslim writers noted the emergence of new political norms and democratic values and institutions in European countries (Lewis 1982, 212–216). However, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the Muslim world came under the influence of many European ideas that had emerged during the seventeenth-to-eighteenth century European Enlightenment. It was in this context that Muslim reformists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned to reinterpreting the primary sources of Islam, especially the Qurʾan, in light of the concerns and needs of the modern society (see Saeed 2014, 20; Hunter 2009, 15). Accordingly, a number of Muslim thinkers of this period such as Jamal al-Din Afghani (d.1897), Muhammad Abduh (d.1905) and Rashid Rida (d.1935) sought to bridge the gap between some Islamic concepts and modern Western socio-political ideas and values. Afghani argued that within a government based on shura, the ruler must consult those who are ruled for the sake of ensuring the welfare of the community. He believed that the modern parliamentary system was similar to shura (Khatab and Bouma 2007, 46). Along similar lines, in an attempt to reconcile Islamic teachings with contemporary norms, Abduh focused on shura as a principle that might be followed to restrict the government’s power in regard to executing certain political decisions (Khatab and Bouma 2007, 48–49). Like his predecessors, Rashid Rida (1988, 9) emphasized the notion of democratic participation in Islam. He argued that “democratic civility” is a reproduction of the principles such as shura and ijmaʿ (consensus), concluding that the Western-style parliamentary system has its equivalent in shura. ⁵ This line of thinking, which represents an affirmative answer to the question of whether shura is compatible with democracy, continued during the twentieth century; and most modernist Muslim scholars, in their attempts to reconcile Islamic practices with modern ideas, adhered to this view. Central to this line of thinking is the identification of certain Qurʾanic verses—and in particular those relating to shura—as precursors of modern political norms and values founded in the West, including democracy, electoral politics, legislative parliament, and constitutionalism. ⁶

At the other end of the spectrum, however, some Muslim thinkers have not considered it necessary to emphasize the compatibility between shura and democracy (or Islam and democracy more generally). Some traditionalists and Islamists fall within this group. They have often rejected Western democracy on the grounds that it fails to recognize the supremacy of the divine law, and regards not God but rather the people as sovereign. Accordingly, they have been reluctant to equate shura with democracy. As Soage (2014, 99) argues, these Islamists believe that “the former is superior to the latter in a number of ways, notably because…it has been sanctioned by divine law.” The shura council, for them, surpasses “Western parliamentarians in qualities like culture and virtue,” meaning that there is no need to reconcile democracy and shura (Soage 2014, 99). In this context, the renowned Egyptian Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb (d.1966) identified shura as a necessary tool for governing a Muslim-majority community, but never widened the scope of shura to accommodate or embrace a system of governance based on a secular Western democracy. For Qutb, Western democracy is “in a state of bankruptcy,” and thus Muslims should not follow Western democratic norms (see Saeed 2014, 152; Shavit 2010, 351–352). Along similar lines, Sayyid Qutb’s brother, Muhammad Qutb (b.1919), argues that “democracy is the equivalent not of shura but of jahiliyya” (cited in Shavit 2010, 359).

It is important to note that not all Islamists suggest that shura and democracy are incompatible. For example, some moderate Islamist scholars such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b.1926), Rashid al-Ghannuchi (b.1941), Muhammad al-Ghazali (d.1996) and Hasan al-Turabi (d.2016), as well as moderate Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, believe that shura and democracy share a number of features in common, and thus argue that it is useful for Muslims to adopt some of the democratic norms that are followed by Western countries. However, they have frequently cautioned that there are also some points that distinguish democracy from shura. Notable among these differences is the idea that while shura is a system ordained by God, Western democracy represents a man-made political order. Therefore, Western democratic ideas, according to these Islamist thinkers and organizations, can be adopted just so long as they do not contradict Sharia values. ⁷

The scholars whose ideas will be explored in the remainder of this article distinguish their approaches from those of the three broad groups discussed above. All these scholars are supporters of democracy and champion the necessity of a democratic order in Muslim societies. Abu Zayd lamented the failings of democracy in Islamic societies throughout his works (see Abu Zayd 2004, 183). Soroush similarly considers democracy the best form of governance since it derives its legitimacy “from the consent of the governed.” As such, he believes that the norms and values of governance in Muslim societies should be “established by institutions representing the people” (Soroush 2000, 57). Shabestari (2004, 147) believes that Muslims should endorse the democratic system because it is the only political system existing today within which justice and freedom can be fully realized. It should be noted that these scholars’ defense of democracy differs from that of the first and third grouping above insofar it is not aimed at establishing a democratic state based on a new reading of the Qurʾan or other classical Islamic sources, as I present below.

Arguments based on religion

I begin my discussion here with a brief overview of the ideas of the Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd. I also explain how his political theory is based on his theological approach—especially his contextual reading of the Qurʾan. Abu Zayd (1995, 71) emphasizes the historicity of revelation, or its “occurrence in time” (al-huduth fi-l-zaman). He states that all sacred scriptures, including the Qurʾan, “belong to a determined cultural structure; they are produced in accordance with the laws governing the culture of their birth” (Abu Zayd 1992, 63). Abu Zayd (2006, 97) opines that the Qurʾan, once revealed to Muhammad, entered history and became adjusted to the cultural norms of the society in which it emerged. For Abu Zayd, the Qurʾan represents the Prophet’s gradual response to the specific issues facing his society and the needs of his community. The Qurʾan indeed reflects the dialectical relationship between the text and the realities of the early Muslim community (Abu Zayd 2010, 287–288). Following this approach, Abu Zayd links the Qurʾan to its immediate context. Since the Qurʾan was transmitted in the Arabic language, and since this language was connected to the cultural and socio-historical milieu in which the Qurʾan appeared, Abu Zayd argues, the message of the text should be understood in the light of the socio-historical context of its emergence—i.e., the seventh-century Arabian society and the psychology of the immediate addressees of the revelation. ⁸

Expanding this approach to the political arena, Abu Zayd asserts that the principle of shura cannot be simply equated with the modern system of democracy because of the context in which it came into being: “in a traditional environment,” Abu Zayd (2006, 96) argues, the shura, “implies something very specific, namely consulting vertically, from the top down, but not too far down.” For Abu Zayd (96), shura “cannot be developed into something democratic because it is traditional.” When the Qurʾan speaks of the shura, it is referring to a principle already in existence in Arabian society, and not to a democratic practice as conceived in today’s context. Equating democracy with shura would essentially divorce revelation from the context of its appearance and, as such, this would be tantamount to considering revelation a phenomenon that is unrelated to the historical context of its emergence. For Abu Zayd (2018, 253), invoking shura as an alternative to democracy “is an attempt to dress up the new and the modern in the guise of the past” and ignores “the differences in the structure of the real world and the evolution of the mechanisms of political action.”

Abu Zayd is therefore critical of those scholars who use the Qurʾan to support democracy insofar as this involves ignoring the context in which the text emerged. His criticisms of these scholars’ approaches reflect his broader attempt to criticize the religious discourse (khitab al-dini) which insists on “using and reviving old language, to banish living language that reflects the real world and to make the real world seem unfamiliar, out of a preference for living in the past” (Abu Zayd 2018, 253). Abu Zayd’s argument concerning the relation between shura and democracy represents an attempt to break with the turath (heritage), which refers to tradition and inherited knowledge—the knowledge that comes down to us both orally and as written texts. His idea stands in sharp contrast to two scholarly lines of thought among Arab scholars: that of the Islamists who attempted to revive turath, and that of the scholars such as Hasan Hanafi who sought to reevaluate or reinterpret the turath in light of modern values. Both groups, according to Abu Zayd (2018, 254), simply seek to “reshape the present in the molds of the past.” Abu Zayd seems to reject any reliance on turath on the grounds that it is an obstacle to the project of democratization in Islamic societies.

Abu Zayd is not alone in challenging the idea that shura can be equated with democracy based on such a contextual approach to interpreting scripture. The Iranian scholar Abdolkarim Soroush also argues for the legitimacy of democracy independent of its overlap with religious principles such as shura. Soroush’s approach to interpreting the Qurʾan is based on the idea that Qurʾanic verses should be divided into two categories: essential and accidental. Soroush provides a list of the accidental aspects of Islam: (1) Arabic language and culture, which includes an Arabic worldview, rituals, and traditions; (2) scientific terms in the realm of astronomy, cosmology, and medicine occasionally found in the Qurʾan and the Sunna; (3) events that have taken place in the course of Islamic history, some of which are mentioned in the Qurʾan and the Sunna, and some of which could have occurred in other ways; and (4) the socio-political precepts of the Qurʾan which reflect the cultural norms of the seventh century audience to which its verses were originally addressed, as well as all precepts of fiqh and Islamic law (Soroush 2009, 70–89). For Soroush, the Qurʾanic precepts related to socio-political matters were shaped within a specific historical and cultural environment, and thus are accidental and contingent. This reflects his attempt to humanize various aspects of Qurʾan (see Akbar 2017; Akbar 2020, 61–71). Soroush thus argues that the mutable precepts of religion, especially in the realm of socio-political matters, should be replaced by other precepts that are not necessarily found in religious sources. Applying this idea to the realm of politics, Soroush makes a sharp distinction between shura and democracy, arguing that the former is an accidental aspect of Islam. Shura was a concept that already existed in Arabia and found its way into the Qurʾan, which means that it was a concept strongly rooted in the culture of the society in which the Qurʾan emerged. He then criticizes those who consider shura and democracy tantamount:

We have put behind us a period in which some scholars…have sought to extract democracy from Islam … Abul Ala Mawdudi and Bazargan were looking for this conceptualization. For example, they interpret Qurʾanic references to consultation (shura) as parliament; and when there is talk about allegiance (bayʿat), they understand it as election … this is impossible and doomed to fail (cited in Ghobadzadeh 2015, 62).

Philosophical arguments supporting democracy beyond religious justifications

Soroush puts forward an epistemological argument to support the distinction between democracy and Islamic principles such as shura, ijma and beyʿat. Pointing to the word haqq (meaning “right”) as the most relevant to a discussion of human rights in the modern context, Soroush (2000, 56) states that human beings today are primarily concerned with rights, rather than duties and obligations. In contrast to pre-modern societies in which emphasis was placed on responsibilities, in the modern era, the notion of rights is strongly stressed. In the context of modernity, the duty-oriented discourses of the preceding centuries were transformed into the present-day rights-oriented discourse. Therefore, there is a crucial difference between pre-modern and modern societies insofar as the rise of modernity represents an epistemological break with the preceding epoch, such that certain types of discourses or paradigms of knowledge that did not previously exist emerged as its essential products. As Soroush argues, one of the “paradigmatic changes of the modern world is that most of its concepts and institutions are rights-based, reflecting the shift in human self-perception from duty-bearing to rights-bearing” (cited in Aliabadi 2005, 68). In a recent public lecture, Soroush (2016) emphasized that “we can divide the history of mankind into two eras: the era of duties and the era of rights. I understand modernity as the era of rights…We are living in and under this paradigm.” ⁹ Due to the contexts in which the sacred scriptures were shaped, Soroush (2016) argues, “the notions of obligations and duties are so…prominent that they overshadow…the idea of rights” in such texts. ¹⁰ As such, the “language of…Islam as exemplified by the Qurʾan and the Tradition is the language of duties, not rights” (Soroush 2000, 62).

It follows from this that modern conceptions of democracy and human rights are the end products of specific historical transformations linked to modernity, and are thus bound to historical conditions that were missing in pre-modern societies, including in the Prophet’s community. Today, human beings are seen as bearers of “rights,” whereas in the pre-modern era in which classical Islamic texts appeared, they were “duty-bound” subjects. Applying this approach to the political arena, Soroush argues that principles such as shura, ijmaʿ and bayʿat (which appeared during an era when modern notions of equality did not exist) cannot be used to support arguments for democracy in the modern period (Soroush 1994, 7). Accordingly, values such as democracy and people’s sovereignty over their socio-political affairs must be supported because they reflect the notion of “right.” In other words, the notion of “right” is strongly emphasized in governments which “derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed” (Soroush 2000, 57).

Along similar lines, Shabestari argues that modernity has brought about a dramatic change in our socio-political norms and values. He describes the pre-modern world as being embedded in taklif—duties or obligations which are concerned with prescribing what is permitted and what is prohibited (Shabestari 2004, 65–66). The language of duties (zaban-e taklif) was employed not only in connection with the realm of rites, but also in the realm of politics and social matters (60--61). In today’s world, we can no longer speak solely about “duties” in the realm of politics given the change of paradigm to one of “rights.” Accordingly, governments in contemporary Muslim societies should not seek to base their legitimacy on pre-modern political expressions which emerged within the paradigm of taklif: “In today’s world, one cannot speak of political and social questions in the language of duties” (61). “In the past, if one spoke about duties and obligations in the sphere of politics and governance,” Shabestari emphasizes, “these duties would have relied on the message of religion, because people were not choosers (entekhabgar) and their only duty was to obey their religious obligations in politics” (72). Rights are the foundation of modernity and democratic forms of government; it is only in terms of the language of rights that we can speak of the will of the majority, freedom, and the equality of all members of society, and these values cannot be simply derived from Islamic texts which took shape in the paradigm of taklif (179). Accordingly, democratic governments should be supported because they are more in line with the paradigm of rights, which is a requirement in the modern era.

Analysis of the theological-philosophical ideas of Abu Zayd, Soroush and Shabestari

As shown so far, Abu Zayd’s, Soroush’s and Shabestari’s ideas are based on two premises. First, for these thinkers, the Qurʾan must be understood as a product of a specific culture. That is, it is important to consider the Qurʾan as a document that was shaped by the same kind of historical contingencies and limitations as other texts or discourses. For these thinkers, this avoids us approaching concepts in an anachronistic way—i.e., projecting our current views (which have been shaped by specific conditions and the episteme of our era) onto the past arbitrarily. Second, as these scholars argue, modernity represents a rupture with the past in respect to its epistemological and cultural dimensions, and many modern concepts such as that of democracy do not have exact counterparts in traditional societies. It follows from this that Islamic principles such as shura do not carry the same implications that are often associated with democracy in the modern world. The latter has its roots in the European Renaissance or the humanistic context of the seventeenth century, whereas the former developed in a Bedouin and tribal society in which the notion of equality (in the sense that we conceptualize it today) was absent.

The philosophical arguments presented by Soroush and Shabestari and examined above are centered on one idea: although there are various forms of democracy in existence today, quite generally, the modern notion of democracy is theoretically grounded on the principle of equality (including the equality of genders, religions, and races) and also the rule of law (which dictates that the law applies to all members of society equally). As already stated, although the term democracy is used in a number of ways, the basic principle of democracy in its modern sense is that all citizens are considered equal in participating in the process of decision-making concerning the policies to be pursued by the state, sometimes indirectly through the process of voting for parliamentary representatives (Dahl 1998, 37). In a traditional society where people were naturally distinguished from each other in some important aspects (such as in respect of their social status or gender—their being a master or a slave, a male or a female) this notion of equality did not exist. The episteme of the period of revelation is no exception to this general rule. Like that of almost all pre-modern societies, the era of revelation did not allow for the emergence of a notion of absolute equality in the modern sense of the word. Indeed, the modern notions of democracy and human rights would have been “unthinkable” or would have been framed as “unthought”—to use Muhammad Arkoun’s term (2002)—in traditional and pre-modern societies. As such, just as other pre-modern societies could not grasp this notion of absolute equality, the Prophet’s society could not conceive of such a concept. All this suggests that democracy, in its modern sense, cannot be derived from the Qurʾan or Sunna.

Implications and consequences

For the Muslim scholars whose ideas are discussed in this article, understanding that shura and democracy emerged within distinct epistemological frameworks is an important step towards developing new political theories. By drawing this distinction between democracy and Islamic principles such as shura, Abu Zayd moves beyond seeking theological justifications for promoting democracy. With respect to promoting a democratic system in a given Muslim country, he argues, “the shura doesn’t give us much help since we no longer live within a tribal unit. The organization of political life, the social system and the structure of the state [in today’s context]…are to be arranged in terms of our experiences, our reason and the will of the citizenry” (cited in Amirpur 2015, 60). For Abu Zayd (2004, 183), if the Qurʾanic verses dealing with political matters are understood in the light of the specific time and context in which they emerged, one would conclude that the “form of government…is open to Muslims to choose for themselves.” Since the Qurʾan does not present a political theory or principles, and nothing is mentioned in the text about the state or methods of governance, Muslims are free to choose the form of governance they wish for their societies in accordance with the norms and standards of their time, and without necessarily referring to the Qurʾan (Abu Zayd 2006, 96). Central to this theory is the idea that developing a democratic system of governance for Muslim-majority societies should not be based on certain Islamic principle such as shura and ijmaʿ, and thus governance should be perceived in non-religious terms. That is, this theory requires that Muslims turn to extra-religious reasoning to incorporate some democratic norms into their methods of governance. This in turn led Abu Zayd (2006, 96) to argue against the legitimacy of any form of “theocracy.” ¹¹

Like Abu Zayd, Soroush is explicit about the need to ground democracy and human rights on extra-religious principles. He writes, “I have…attempted to explain that extra-religious ideas are authentic and autonomously significant… [As an example] human rights are one of these important extra-religious concepts” (Soroush 2000, 22). For Soroush (129), “the extra religious debates of our day, which happen to concern human rights, must be viewed as worthy and useful exchanges of opinions in Islamic society.” As such, in developing any contemporary political discourses such as democracy and human rights, one should not “evade rational, moral, and extra-religious principles and reasoning…myopically focusing [on] nothing but the primary texts and maxims of religion” (128). Therefore, in his discussion of the ideal form of governance, Soroush does not refer to the Islamic principle of shura, but rather argues that the discussion of governance should be based on the principles of human rights. Soroush acknowledges the necessity of extra-religious principles of governance instead of placing ultimate emphasis on religious concepts:

[I make] no attempt to place the entire weight of the conceptual edifice of democracy upon the frail shoulders of such (intrareligious) precepts as consultation [shura], consensus of the faithful [ijmaʿ] and oath of loyalty to a ruler [beiʿat]. Rather, the discourse on religious government should commence with a discussion of human rights, justice and restriction of power [which are] all extra-religious issues (Soroush 2000, 132).

Shabestari also critiques religious justifications for democracy, arguing that a democratic state should not be based on principles of the Qurʾan and the Tradition. He therefore assumes a non-religious point of departure for establishing a political theory about a democratic form of governance in today’s world (Shabestari 2004, 137–152; 2005, 25–27). Applying his idea about the distinction between modern and pre-modern societies, Shabestari (2005, 517) argues that “democratic government is the product of recent centuries. It is not possible to expect that democratic government [in the sense of the modern world] could exist at the time of the Prophet or the rightly guided Caliphs.” He also uses his contextual understanding of the Qurʾan and of the early Muslim communities in Mecca and Medina to argue in favor of democratization beyond religious justifications:

The way of life in Medina and Mecca was quite simple … Nowadays, Muslims live in [complex] social systems, in which there is a wide diversity of institutions. This requires us to develop a proper plan with the aid of reason. This is not something that can be derived from the Koran (Shabestari 2012).

Final reasoning: Emphasis on hermeneutics

What also necessitates emphasizing the justification of democracy beyond religious reasoning as Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari have argued is the idea that every reader of a given text possesses a prior understanding which strongly influences the process of interpretation. The hermeneutical approaches of these scholars are not only grounded in their considerations of the socio-historical context of revelation (i.e., the broader framework of the values and norms of the era of revelation); they are also sensitive towards the context in which the Qurʾan is being interpreted by commentators. What Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari hold is that no text can be interpreted in an absolute or entirely objective way. Rather, they argue, every commentator is guided in a great measure by the presuppositions and prior understandings or knowledge that he already possesses before he reads and interprets the Qurʾan. In other words, the readers of a given text, in this case the Qurʾan, are preconditioned by the socio-political and cultural milieus in which they live. This gives rise to a particular horizon of understanding, and entails that no interpretation is entirely void of prejudice. Therefore, in a fashion reminiscent of Gadamer’s hermeneutic, ¹³ Soroush, Abu Zayd, and Shabestari argue that meaning is given to the Qurʾan in a great measure, rather than simply being extracted from it (Soroush 1995, 271).

This approach can aptly explain why various questions and approaches concerning the relation between Islam and democracy emerged in modern Islamic scholarship. While pre-modern interpreters did not attach much political significance to such notions as shura, circumstances related to the new political context of the modern period have led many commentators to attach new meanings and understandings to them. Indeed, the interested knowledge and presuppositions of some contemporary scholars (i.e., those related to their political contexts) have led them to approach the shura verses in a different way, expecting the Qurʾan to address the issue of the relation between democracy and shura explicitly. Muslim scholars, whether they are for or against democracy, can interpret the Qurʾanic injunction of shura in a way that corresponds to their interested knowledge, pre-understandings, and presuppositions. That is, the hypotheses of both groups are based on their prior interests; whoever wants to interpret the Qurʾan in a democratic fashion can do so, and whoever wishes to reject democratic norms can similarly do so. As Shabestari (2012) states, “if Muslims want democracy, then they will find an interpretation of Islam that is compatible with democracy. If they don’t want democracy, then they won’t find such an interpretation.” Therefore, Shabestari suggests, “the question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy is a false one. The proper question is whether Muslims want democracy or not” (Shabestari 2012). What this suggests is that the attempt to provide a reading of the Qurʾan that makes Islam compatible with democracy is not as important as answering concrete questions about whether Muslims should seek democracy or not. Therefore, instead of placing Islamic principles (such as shura and ijmaʿ) that might seem to support modern democratic norms at the center of any discussion about the acceptance of democracy, modern democratic norms, as these scholars argue, could be defended based on their own values and within the context of the present world.

Concluding remarks

This article has demonstrated how a certain religious/philosophical approach followed by Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari can bring forth a new political discourse in Islamic scholarship. In particular, this approach involves rejecting the equation of shura with democracy since it misunderstands the episteme of the specific period when the Qurʾan was revealed to the Prophet. Together, then, Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari are opposed to the notion of “revelation-based democracy” and similarly any narrow religious justification for democracy. This represents a relatively new paradigm shift in contemporary Islamic thought, and one that sheds an important new light on the function of religion in politics.

The scholars whose ideas have been analyzed in this article do not suggest however that Muslims should absolutely avoid developing methods of governance from within an Islamic framework. Nor do they suggest that Muslims should exactly emulate methods of governance in the way that they function in the West. The arguments they have advanced, and which have been summarized here, are more limited than these. The implications of this approach are as follows: (1) Muslims can flexibly turn to some or most elements of modern Western democratic norms without claiming that these already existed at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, and without necessarily indicating that they are inherently “Islamic,” meaning that democracy can be justified beyond religious reasoning. (2) Democracy is part of the non-religious knowledge of our era, and it should be incorporated into Islamic political discourses instead of being derived from the Qurʾan and the Sunna. These ideas lay the foundation of a conceptual framework which highlights the idea that we can turn towards less religious forms of government—forms whose legitimacy is not achieved from religious sources, and which are neutral towards different religions and their followers.

On the one hand, then, Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari aim to develop a theoretical discourse that underscores the significance of extra-religious reasoning and values in arguments for the promotion of democracy in contemporary Islamic thought since it emphasizes the entry of Western democratic norms into an Islamic worldview. On the other hand, these scholars seek to promote democratic norms based on a contextual approach to reading the Qurʾan. Indeed, while their projects are focused on developing new approaches to (re)interpreting classical Islamic texts—specifically the Qurʾan, they also seek to contribute to the development of secular human rights discourses and democratic principles by means of placing two cultural modes in dialogue with each other.

The ideas of Abu Zayd, Soroush, and Shabestari about the relation between democracy and shura can be compared with those of some Muslim scholars who question feminist exegesis of the Qurʾan. In exploring the ideas of scholars such as Asma Barlas and Azizah al-Hibri, Aysha Hidayatullah (2014, 152) has recently argued that “the Qurʾan perhaps cannot in the end be fully reconciled with our understandings of sexual equality and justice,” and what we expect from the Qurʾan is “specific to us and not reflected in the Qurʾan,” meaning that our demand of the Qurʾan to fully fulfill gender equality “might be anachronistic” (150). In other words, the concept of gender equality as we conceive it today cannot necessarily be derived from the Qurʾan or classical Islamic sources; if we do so, our approach is anachronistic. Here, if we replace “gender equality” with “democracy,” we can state that deriving democracy from the Qurʾan is anachronistic in the sense that the former and the latter belong to two different epistemes.

It should finally be noted that this line of scholarly thinking may not yield much in the way of tangible, on the ground, democratic political change. Given that they have promoted strategies to “jump over the wall of revelation,” to use Banafsheh Madaninejad’s (2019, 126) expression, to argue in favor of promoting democracy, their ideas have not always been welcomed by Islamist political leaders. Even in the context of Iran, a country whose political system is based on Islamic laws, reformist politicians tried to focus on Islamic concepts to implement reform in the socio-political arena. For example, because of the lobbying of some Islamic feminists who based their arguments on the primary sources of Islam, Article 1169 of the Civil Code of Iran was amended in 2003 to ensure women have custody rights of both boys and girls up to the age of seven. Along similar lines, the former reformist president of Iran Muhammad Khatami stated, “shura is the most important basis of civil society, as are political development, popular participation, respect for the rights of the people, and reducing the role of the government” (Kamrava 2008, 144). In this context, one might ask: Can the ideas of scholars such as Soroush, Abu Zayd and Shabestari be incorporated into broader Muslim discourses, and if so, how might these have tangible impacts in the world of politics and beyond academia? These questions cannot be fully answered here, though it is hoped that this article has suggested some of the possible directions in which their legacies and further discussion about their ideas may be steered in the future.