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Is Islam incompatible with democracy?

Is Islam incompatible with religion?

  • No, there are other factors

    Votes: 16 44.4%

  • Yes, because there is no separation between church & state over there

    Votes: 6 16.7%

  • Yes, because the Koran is their only law, and it is against democracy

    Votes: 10 27.8%

  • Yes, because it's "foreign" to their culture, democracy is a Western concept

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • other

    Votes: 6 16.7%
  • Total voters
    36
kaya'08 said:
Partly free is not a Democracy.
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It's partly a democracy. Still better than Russia or China. That's the point.


And 405 muslims is not half of all the muslims on this planet.
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I won't list all the muslim countries. I listed the biggest ones so that you get the point. And even those countries alone are more than enough to show that democracy is totally possible in Muslim countries
 
Glücksritter said:
How do they show it? With massacres or by bombing?
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There are also terrorist attacks in Spain, but no one says that Basque people are antidemocratic. The ETA does not represent them.
 
PeteEU said:
My point is that religion is incompatible with democracy. All major religions demand a certain level of devotion by followers to said religion and that devotion on many levels contradicts basic democratic freedoms and thought.
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That view would be a tough sell to the American Baptists; they played a key role in colonial politics, during the 'Great Awakening' decades, and the eventual American Revolution here, and Thomas Jefferson made it a priority of getting their support for his more liberal platforms in the Constitution. They were the leading proponents of the separation of Church and State doctrine and secular public education, a battle Jefferson was still fighting when he died with the state of Virginia.

Of course, it's certainly up for debate whether the Revolution was a big mistake in the first place or not ...
 
bub said:
There are also terrorist attacks in Spain, but no one says that Basque people are antidemocratic. The ETA does not represent them.
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Kandahar said:
Indian Muslims are very moderate and peaceful. What are you talking about?
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I think it is rather strange to build up a story of a muslim country being democratic, bacause a muslim minority "accepts" it, by the way a country with one of the most victims of Islamist terrorism.
 
Glücksritter said:
I think it is rather strange to build up a story of a muslim country being democratic, bacause a muslim minority "accepts" it, by the way a country with one of the most victims of Islamist terrorism.
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How many non-Muslim nations are in fact "democratic"?
 
celticlord said:
How many non-Muslim nations are in fact "democratic"?
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If India is a muslim nation for you due to a muslim minority, I have serious doubts that a non muslim country by your definition exists at all.

Even in North Corea exists a small muslim minority of a few people.
 
bub said:
Indonesia is the biggest muslim country in the world, and it is a democracy.
India is the 2nd biggest muslim country in the world, and it is also a democracy.


China is the biggest country in the world, it is not muslim and it is a dictatorship.
Russia is one of the biggest non muslim countries in the world, and it is also a dictatorship.

How do you explain that?
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Easily. The further away from the heartland of Islam (or Sunni Arabs) the more progressive the society gets. Notice that? The most democratic and socially progressive Muslim country is Turkey and they are not Sunni Arabs. The most oppressive Muslim governments are Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and formerly Iraq....all Sunni Arab nations. I stated this a few posts ago.

India is not parented by a Muslim government. But if they were, the Sunni prescritpion would not be a hinderance.

China and Russia have nothing to do with nothing. However, Russia is as "democratic" as Iran. And communism has been referred to as the "godless" religion before.
 
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Kandahar said:
Indian Muslims are very moderate and peaceful. What are you talking about?
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They are also not Sunni Arabs. People are trying to look at this as if it is a Muslim thing. It is not. It is a tribal thing.
 
GySgt said:
Easily. The further away from the heartland of Islam (or Sunni Arabs) the more progressive the society gets. Notice that? The most democratic and socially progressive Muslim country is Turkey and they are not Sunni Arabs. The most oppressive Muslim governments are Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and formerly Iraq....all Sunni Arab nations. I stated this a few posts ago.

India is not parented by a Muslim government. But if they were, the Sunni prescritpion would not be a hinderance.

China and Russia have nothing to do with nothing. However, Russia is as "democratic" as Iran. And communism has been referred to as the "godless" religion before.
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According to this map they're Sunni.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/MuslimDistribution2.jpg

But maybe your point is that they're not Arabs.

So, Islam would be compatible with democracy, unless the people are Arab.

But once more that does not work: Afghani are not Arab but they have the most extreme Islamic government. It is the same for various African countries, like Chad, who are not Arab at all but are among the most extreme Islamist countries in the world.

And a counter example was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which was ruled by Sunni Arabs and which was not a democracy but it was not a theocracy neither.
 
GySgt said:
Easily. The further away from the heartland of Islam (or Sunni Arabs) the more progressive the society gets. Notice that? The most democratic and socially progressive Muslim country is Turkey and they are not Sunni Arabs. The most oppressive Muslim governments are Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and formerly Iraq....all Sunni Arab nations. I stated this a few posts ago.

India is not parented by a Muslim government. But if they were, the Sunni prescritpion would not be a hinderance.

China and Russia have nothing to do with nothing. However, Russia is as "democratic" as Iran. And communism has been referred to as the "godless" religion before.
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Far away like Yemen and Kuwait??? Point of fact Turkey is majority Sunni as is Indonesia.
 
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bub said:
And a counter example was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which was ruled by Sunni Arabs and which was not a democracy but it was not a theocracy neither.
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Saddam is the example that probably goes closest to the heart of the matter.

Religion is not of itself a stumbling block to democracy. Theocracies are difficult things to justify by any religious text. Even Iran's Islamic Republic required some significant contortions by the Ayatollah Khomeni to rationalize.

However, there are cultural dynamics within certain peoples that lend themselves to non-democratic government. The most potent force against democracy in the Middle East is not Islam but tribal society. The same is also true for many parts of Africa as well as Afghanistan.

In tribal societies, familial and clan loyalties matter more than national loyalties, and the success of the clan matters more than the cohesion and prosperity of the nation. Such a culture does not foster democratic principles; competition among various clans results in an effective nation state only when one clan succeeds in dominating the others.

Nations that do not have tribal cultures are going to have greater success with democracy than nations with tribal cultures. The presence of Islam is merely coincidental.
 
GySgt said:
They are also not Sunni Arabs. People are trying to look at this as if it is a Muslim thing. It is not. It is a tribal thing.
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I completely agree. Nearly all Islamist terrorist ideologies begin in the Arab world and are exported to the rest of the Muslim world...and more specifically, they begin in the most destitute parts of the Arab world, like Yemen and Palestine. (Much has been made of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as being the godfather to all of these movements...but I don't think it is, since the Muslim Brotherhood has generally played by the rules and rarely explicitly endorses terrorism. The extremists generally operate in places where it's far worse to live than Egypt.)

The long-term solution to Islamic extremism, IMO, is to help some of the worst-off countries in the Muslim world build functioning societies. Along with Yemen and Palestine, this would include some non-Arab countries like Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and rural Pakistan. Once we eliminating the hotbeds of extremism, we will eliminate the contagion...then all we have to do is wait for the extremists already entrenched in other parts of the Muslim world to die or be marginalized.
 
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Kandahar said:
I completely agree. Nearly all Islamist terrorist ideologies begin in the Arab world and are exported to the rest of the Muslim world...and more specifically, they begin in the most destitute parts of the Arab world, like Yemen and Palestine. (Much has been made of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as being the godfather to all of these movements...but I don't think it is, since the Muslim Brotherhood has generally played by the rules and rarely explicitly endorses terrorism. The extremists generally operate in places where it's far worse to live than Egypt.)

The long-term solution to Islamic extremism, IMO, is to help some of the worst-off countries in the Muslim world build functioning societies. Along with Yemen and Palestine, this would include some non-Arab countries like Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and rural Pakistan. Once we eliminating the hotbeds of extremism, we will eliminate the contagion...then all we have to do is wait for the extremists already entrenched in other parts of the Muslim world to die or be marginalized.
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The idea that Yemen belongs in the same category as "Palestine" Somalia and Afghanistan is simply ridiculous.
 
Agent Ferris said:
The idea that Yemen belongs in the same category as "Palestine" Somalia and Afghanistan is simply ridiculous.
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Yemen is crushingly poor, and the rule of law is weak or absent. As a result, extremism is alive and well there. Sounds a lot like those other nations to me. What do you believe sets Yemen apart from the others I mentioned? :confused:
 
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bub said:
According to this map they're Sunni.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/MuslimDistribution2.jpg

But maybe your point is that they're not Arabs.

So, Islam would be compatible with democracy, unless the people are Arab.

But once more that does not work: Afghani are not Arab but they have the most extreme Islamic government. It is the same for various African countries, like Chad, who are not Arab at all but are among the most extreme Islamist countries in the world.

And a counter example was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which was ruled by Sunni Arabs and which was not a democracy but it was not a theocracy neither.
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I did state Sunni "Arabs." The clear and obvious rule is that the closer the society is to the Sunni Arab tribe the more oppressed and twisted it is. This does not mean that non-Sunni Arab societies are free and clear of oppression. The Tali-Ban leadership very much adhered to the Sunni Arab prescription, which is why Al-Queda found great comfort with them.

And once again...Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Arab.

Damn, Bub. It appears that you are hell bent on denying any patterns as if to pretend that all is by accident or by outside influence and prescription. It is not. There is a clear historical pattern here and denying it only serves to offer Sunni Arabs their validated denials. I have given you names and dates in history where the Sunni Arab tribe denied the Ottoman Turks their attempts to reform the (or modernize) the religion in a world where other religions threatened to fly right by them. The fact is that the Sunni Arab is the reason Islam is in the state that it is in today.

Look at it another way. In the world we live in today, medical science has come a long way from the the state it was in centuries ago when "bleeding" was the remedy. Would you seek to argue that there is no pattern to be found for the religious nutcases in the deep south of America that preferred prayer over medical science? Bring in poor education, insufficient outside focus, or the national evangilist on TV all you want, but the fact is that people are ultimately responsible for the decisions they make and no amount of denial will change this.

Sunni Arabs are to blame for much of Islam's state, especially in the Middle East where they export Wahhabism and extreme fanaticism......all simply to ensure popular allegiance to a specific tribe. If God is everywhere...why face Mecca to pray? If God understands all languages why pray in Arabic? See the pattern? The Quran is clear on God's ultimate knowledge and presence, yet, in spite of this, the center of Islam's faith appears to be Sunni Arab centric.

And what would true democracy do to the Sunni Tirbe's position as Islam's care taker? The Shia, the Kurds, the Turks, the many other tribes of Islam who have found themselves constantly under pressure from the Sunni Arab Tribe? What did the Turks do to Islam when they abolished the Sunni prescriotion of a Caliphate? And how far from Sharia has Iraq gotten from their democracy saw the Shia become the majority? The Sunni Arsb call the Shia heretics. And Iran's "democracy" is made up of the Shia. It seems painfully obvious to me.
 
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Agent Ferris said:
Yemen and Kuwait???
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Why are you fighting this? 42 percent of Yemen is Shia and Sharia is the basic source of law. It's not the Arab boom you think it is. But it is the Arab prescription of the Sauds that hinders this nation.

"The government and its security forces, often considered to suffer from rampant corruption, have been responsible for torture, inhumane treatment and even extrajudicial executions. There are arbitrary arrests of citizens, especially in the south, as well as arbitrary searches of homes. Prolonged pretrial detention is a serious problem, and judicial corruption, inefficiency, and executive interference undermine due process. Freedom of speech, the press and religion are all restricted.
Yemen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"
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And Kuwait proves another point I have made. Kuwait has a 50+ percent Arab population. However, it is the historical cultural mix that lifts it above the rest. Of all the examples of Muslim governments between Cairo and Islamabad, Kuwait is the exception to the rule and the example highly ignored by the rest. They have a very mixed culture in the aspect of tribe and religion. Without the Arab prescription of Sharia or Islamic dominance and monopolism, Kuwait's HDI (Human Development Index) is bested only by Israel ini the Middle East. Of course, having the American hand in the mix doesn't exactly hurt matters.

The general rule is that the furthest Muslim nations get from the heart of Islam, the healthier they tend to become (Kuwait, the extreme lone exception.) This is why Muslims can exist and prosper in a western democracy without fail like the rest of us. This is why a monopoly on religion has always proven to be a disaster for civilizations down through history. The very same rule existed for Christianity in the 16th century. The nations that spurned the Catholic church, which was/is seated at Rome were Britian, parts of Germany, and others. In the future, the absence of a single dominant religion and the presence of multi cultures and religion saw Britian beomce the most humane by far even in its colonies and Germany become the smart guys of western Europe. Doesn't Italy lag behind the rest today? And what of Spain? They were the Pope's greatest ally during this period of religious reform and only in the 1970s did they finally emerge from the dictator's category of organization.

There are so many trends in history that lead us to logical conclusions and help us predict probabe futures in these civilizations. Arguing for the exceptions doesn't help us understand why they are the exception.
 
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GySgt said:
Why are you fighting this?
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Yemen 5 5 Partly Free

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World_(report)

That's pretty good for that region.

42 percent of Yemen is Shia and Sharia is the basic source of law. It's not the Arab boom you think it is. But it is the Arab prescription of the Sauds that hinders this nation.
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No it was the Marxists that destroyed the Yemenese economy. The Sauds have higher standards of living.


And Kuwait proves another point I have made. Kuwait has a 50+ percent Arab population. However, it is the historical cultural mix that lifts it above the rest. Of all the examples of Muslim governments between Cairo and Islamabad, Kuwait is the exception to the rule and the example highly ignored by the rest. They have a very mixed culture in the aspect of tribe and religion. Without the Arab prescription of Sharia or Islamic dominance and monopolism, Kuwait's HDI (Human Development Index) is bested only by Israel ini the Middle East. Of course, having the American hand in the mix doesn't exactly hurt matters.

The general rule is that the furthest Muslim nations get from the heart of Islam, the healthier they tend to become (Kuwait, the extreme lone exception.) This is why Muslims can exist and prosper in a western democracy without fail like the rest of us. This is why a monopoly on religion has always proven to be a disaster for civilizations down through history. The very same rule existed for Christianity in the 16th century. The nations that spurned the Catholic church, which was/is seated at Rome were Britian, parts of Germany, and others. In the future, the absence of a single dominant religion and the presence of multi cultures and religion saw Britian beomce the most humane by far even in its colonies and Germany become the smart guys of western Europe. Doesn't Italy lag behind the rest today? And what of Spain? They were the Pope's greatest ally during this period of religious reform and only in the 1970s did they finally emerge from the dictator's category of organization.

There are so many trends in history that lead us to logical conclusions and help us predict probabe futures in these civilizations. Arguing for the exceptions doesn't help us understand why they are the exception.
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Kandahar said:
Yemen is crushingly poor, and the rule of law is weak or absent. As a result, extremism is alive and well there. Sounds a lot like those other nations to me. What do you believe sets Yemen apart from the others I mentioned? :confused:
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And yet it's listed partly free by freedomhouse.

The same can be said of a few eastern bloc nations as well which are, also, listed partly free or even free. I don't see the connection unless theocrats come to control the government IE Iran, Saudi Arabia (blood pact house of Saud and Wahhab), former Taliban Afghanistan, and current Gaza.

I thought that the discussion was about democracy which is the token term for liberalism.
 
First, a question: What part of the Qur'an makes them think democracy is impossible?

It's harder to have democracy with Islam partly because they are more focused upon orthopraxy than orthodoxy, as we have with conservative Christians. So instead of just needing to have the right mindset, and "give to Caesar that which is Caesars" as Jesus might say, the Muslims are expected to act out their religion in a more public way. There are predominantly Muslim countries with democracy, like Turkey. And more conservative nations could use democracy, provided they used the Qu'ran as a sort of Constitution, which the largely homogenous populace wouldn't violate except out of ignorance.


Arch Enemy said:
I do not understand how it can be an Monotheistic culture and accept alternatives.

It would be considered a hazard to the health of the individual to not accept Allah. They would treat that person like we treat the mentally ill.
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We don't necessarily execute the mentally ill.

Agent Ferris said:
Iran is antithetical to democracy, their system is theocratic at its core and the elections are a farce because it is the theocrats who hold the true power within that country not the elected officials.
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Well one could say the same about corporate powers in America, not that democracy is a great alternative to it.

Orius said:
Afghanistan and Iraq are examples of nations that were both democracies until their governments suffered coups sponsored by our friends in the West.

Democracy is something that the West does not want the Middle East to have or maintain so long as the people there are anti-West and have input into which foreign nations get their support. Most of this centers around oil or strategic support.

If you look at historical examples of countries that wanted to nationalize their oil and restrict trade with the West, such as Iran, you'll find that the West (particularly the U.S.) immediately sponsored coups in those nations. Dictators are much more easily controlled.

Islam is just the most recent political scapegoat for the above factors. Western nations don't want their people thinking about the truth, after all.
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Yeah I know what you mean on Iran: [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax]1953 Iranian coup d'état - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

peepnklown said:
Islam can be compatible with Mob Rule, oh, I meant democracy. :doh
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Yeah I know. Don't they get together and stone immoral people to death? Is that democracy? Or barbarism? I guess it's both.
 
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LiveUninhibited said:
Well one could say the same about corporate powers in America, not that democracy is a great alternative to it.
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The U.S. is a bastion of liberal pluralism, what system would you prefer? And which corporate powers would you be referring to exactly? Do you know what an anti-trust law is?

I mean to even suggest that (in a country where the Baha'i are treated as 4th class citizens Christians and Jews as 3rd class citizens, and women as 2nd class citizens) is even in the same timeline as the U.S. is laughable to the point of offensive.
 
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