By Khalid Umar
Do you know that the largest body of Muslims living in a functioning democracy is India, which is almost 11% of the total Muslims worldwide?
None of the 57 OIC [Islamic] countries is truly a secular democracy. The reason is that Islam’s ethos is not democratic. Islam originated from a tribal background. Since its inception, all the decision-making relied on brute power, exercised through powerful warlords. Historically, succession in Islamic rule has been through treachery, poison, sword, gallows, assassinations or coups.
Therefore, the society Islam creates is not fit for democracy, socially and intellectually.
If you look at their history, all of Islam’s heroes were dictators and warriors; barbarian invaders like Khalid Ibn Walid, Tariq Bin Ziyad, Salahuddin Ayubi, Ghauri, Mahmud Ghaznavi, Mohamad Bin Qasim, Allauddin Khilji, Tamerlane (Taimur). They even name their children after these medieval barbarians.
Political parties are banned in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
Indonesia, with 231 Million Muslims (13% of the world’s Muslims), was a dictatorship until 1998. Although, on paper, a democracy, it is a ‘Demagoguery With a Mix of Theocracy’ and its democratic indicators are in a recession.
Pakistan has been under military rule since partition. Bangladesh has been between martial law, theocracy, and Mullahs and has never been a fully and genuinely functional secular democracy.
WHY DEMOCRACY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH ISLAM
There is no other faith in which the Prophet wields so much power that obedience to Muhammad supersedes even that of Allah. Islamic societies need eons of evolution and paradigm shift before they embrace the concept of one man-one vote.
They are less troublesome when ruled by despotic rulers. Democracy does not fit them.
Qaddafi, Hafizul Asad, Shah of Iran, Gemal Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Idi Emin, Ayub Khan, Yahya, Houari Boumediene, King Zahir Shah, Saleh of Yemen, and Sadam are all examples of dictators in the last 50 years in Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Algiers, Uganda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen etc.
These countries were controlled and generally peaceful, and no proliferation of jihad as long as despots ruled them. They are worse off now after US/Western intervention to introduce democracy.
Islam is a political regime which establishes autocracy in the name of Allah, who is the sovereign and the right to rule (as per the Quran) rests with those who are influential among the populace.
Today we call it Martial Law, where heads are not to be counted (but chopped). Muslims vie for a central authority in their civil structure; an assembly of oligarchs, a military junta, a few powerful lords, etc. Most Muslims live ‘happily’ in despotic and non-democratic countries or monarchies.
MUSLIMS in India will always be unhappy and dissatisfied with India’s Democracy as they can’t value freedom of speech, liberty of expression and equality as citizens. This has never been the ethos of Islam’s 14 centuries.
