Islam’s incompatibility with democracy and equality

September 29, 2007 at 10:58 pm (Books, Christianity, Idiots, Islam, Islamism, Personal, Religion, Religions, The West, Theology)

Point the First:

The central problem of the democracy in Iraq is Islam. Islam has always had a political and social character, including a full program for government. In fact, the first year of the Islamic calendar does not mark the birth of dead of Muhammad, of the beginning of his prophetic ministry. It marks Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina, where he became a political and military leader and Islam became a state.

(Robert Spencer. Religion of Peace? Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007, p. 165.)

This is most forcefully demonstrated by the fact that after Muhammad’s flight, Muhammad revelations take on a vastly more political tone (almost to the point of legal minutiae) and a much more intolerant tone (as, being the indisputed leader, he no longer had to tolerate or appease anyone).

Point the Second:

And of course there is no shortage of people who insist that Islam not only does not forbid, but in fact also actively fosters democracy. Abdulwahab Alkebsi of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, for instance, has declared that the essentials of democracy are “consistent with Islam’s clarion call for justice, equality, and human dignity. . . . According to the Qur’an, one of the explicit purposes of God’s messengers is to offer mankind liberty, justice, and equality.” Islam, he said, “lays the ground for the values of freedom, justice, and equality that are essential to democracy, more so than any other religion or dogma.” [Reference omitted.]

Not only as much as any other religion or dogma, but more so. Can this really be true? Iranian journalist Amir Taheri thinks not. Arguing in favor of the proposition that Islam is incompatible with democracy during a debate in 2004, he directly contradicted the assertions D’Souza would make three years later: “There are fifty-seven nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Not one is yet a democracy. The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.” He concluded, “Islam is incompatible with democracy.” [Reference omitted]

(Robert Spencer. Religion of Peace? Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007, p. 166.)

Subpoint the First, explaining Spencer’s reference to D’Souza:

So can Islamic countries be democratic? Some commentators think so. Dinesh D’Souza scolded conservatives in 2007 for “holding silly seminars on whether Islam is compatible with democracy. In reality, a majority of the world’s Muslims today live under democratic governments–in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Turkey, not to mention Muslims living in Western countries. There is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic tradition that forbids democracy.” [Reference omitted.]

(Robert Spencer. Religion of Peace? Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007, p. 166.)

I am glad Spencer called D’Souza out. I am still absolutely confused why D’Souza would turn on us and support our enemies.

Point the Third:

The fundamental problem, according to Taheri, is Islam’s rejection of the idea that all people have equal dignity, a Christian idea that was central to abolishing slavery. But in Islam, it’s a very different story. The very idea of equality, Taheri declared, “is unacceptable to Islam.”

(Robert Spencer. Religion of Peace? Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007, p. 166.)

Allow me to share an anecdote. One evening, I was with my father with other men, his friends, as there was a dinner among mutual family friends. They were discussing issues related to Islam and especially Islam vis-à-vis The West (which, I would dourly notice, they would do all. the. frickin’. time). The women were not involved as, as is normal, they were separate from us and discussing goodness knows what. It is quite natural for men and women to remain separate, not out of any religious fastidiousness but simply because we men and they women have nothing in common to discuss.

For once — very rare for me — I decided to jump in. The issue being discussed was an incident in New York where a Muslim woman dared to lead a congregational prayer. (In normative Islam, not only should women not lead prayers, they must pray physically apart from men, behind them: there is to be no mingling of the sexes, and unlike Jews or Eastern Orthodox Christians, the women are not to sit or stand to one side of the men’s area but are to be completely separate, behind the men at least, where the men cannot see them at all, even if they turn their head.) The men, for the most part, agreed that what she did was very wrong (and inspired, undoubtedly, by the ignorance of the Christians and Jews, who grant such equality to women; maybe Christians and/Jews paid her to do this, to create a rift among Muslims). I used this as an argument that women, in fact, are not equal in Islam.

One refuted me by saying that women are equal. (The meme that Islam teaches that women are equal is very strong among Muslims in the West, even though there is no evidence for this claim and, in fact, there is ample evidence against such a claim.) He said that women are allowed to lead prayers when the congregation is made up of women.

I countered by saying that this is precisely what I meant: although women can lead congregations made up of women, they cannot do the same when the congregation is of women and men, and as such are not equal with men in Islam.

Even though we went back back forth, wherein Islam’s policies favorable to women were brought forth, I reminded them that “favorable policies” does not equal to “equality”: despite Islam’s inheritance and divorce laws being more women-friendly than those of other religions, said policies still treated women on an inequal (and, at that, an inferior) basis than it did men. Thus, women were not equal in Islam.

Even defending Islam’s policies did not mitigate the fact that women were and are unequal in Islam.

We did not broach the point Taheri would explain (and which Spencer deals with), which is equality with non-Muslims. Equality between Muslims and non-Muslims is anathema in Islam.

Now, equality between believers of a religion (be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism) and non-believers is anathema in every religion. There is no religion that says that the followers of another religion are equal to its own faithful. The others are wrong and, as such, are obviously inferior. But this is all on a spiritual level, an issue of spiritual inferiority or superiority. This is an element that cannot be denied.

(Indeed, we see that religions that claim to affirm the equality of all religions — such as the Bahá’í Faith — are not so affirming in reality. With regard to the Bahá’í Faith, for example, only the Bahá’í Faith is true while all other religions are false as they are today; similarly, people assume that Hinduism and Buddhism teach that other religions or the people thereof are true or equivalent, which is a very false assumption: both teach that its own paradigm is true, and that all other paradigms are false. Indeed, some interpretations or sects take matters of religion or spirituality and elevate them to concrete, physical, material, and scientific truth.)

Almost every religion is ready to set aside this inequality when it comes to the composition and application of political law: a person’s spiritual status ought to bear no relevance to what rights he or she ought to enjoy under the laws of a state. If a Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist commits a crime, he or she ought to face the same punishment as if a member of another religion committed the same crime. This is what is meant by equality under the law.

Some religious systems, such as Judaism, have laws which deal with laws of the state, and include stipulations concerning what punishments or rights are applicable to a believer and which to a non-believer. There is an inequality in such laws, with laws obviously favoring believers. But Judaism has not been in a position to formulate, let alone enforce, such laws. Even in the State of Israel, such biblical or Talmudic laws have not been enacted. The State of Israel is not a Jewish state, for a paramount element of a Jewish state would be a Jewish law, but is a secular (or lay) state established as a safe haven where Jews may live and practice their religion without hindrance or persecution, which situation is unlike what exists in practically every other state of the world.

And, true, for centuries Christian states had enacted laws that discriminated on the basis of religion (among other bases) and even denomination. Recall that until relatively recently Catholism was severely restricted in The United Kingdom, where the state religion was and is The Church of England or (for those areas outside England) the relevant entity in the Anglican Communion. But in today’s age of equality under the law, such laws are seen as disagreeable by even Anglicans. And in any case, such laws today serve only to say that a Catholic (or, actually, a non-Anglican) may not be Prime Minister or Sovereign. Which is discriminatory and runs counter to democracy: but this may be an exception that proves the rule. For example, most other European states with state religions have since disestablished state churches.

Then, in the history of the world, came laïcité, which stipulated absolute equality under the law regardless of religion. This was a fulfillment of a radical belief in Christianity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). In the unity in the Faith, all distinctions are to be blurred. Laïcité took this and changed “unity in the Faith” to “unity in the Nation” or (in the case of America, which is not a nation-state but simply a state) “unity in the State/Republic”.

The seed sown by the Apostle Paul laid the foundation for a revolutionary concept: equality under the law, freedom for all, and equal participation in republican government. This is a concept that is acceptable to all religions because the discriminatory aspect of all religions is confined to religious and spiritual matters.

But not Islam. Inequality is an essential element in Islam and in the inevitable and undeniable political aspect of Islam.

By the way, slavery is permitted in Islam; and, according to prevailing interpretations of Islam (since the beginning of Islam), it is anti-Islamic to abolish slavery by Muslims.

As another ending morsel: you know the slaves the Europeans bought from Africa and dispersed throughout the world? They were bought by the Europeans and their status as slaves were perpetuated by the Europeans, of this there is no doubt. But do you know who initially enslaved them? You got it: Muslims. It was normative for Muslims to enslave conquered non-Muslim Africans.

So much for equality in Islam.