Muslim Heretics Conference

Wikipedia and Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad: The Latest Inane Distraction

Jeremy Henzell-Thomas

Wikipedia and Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad: The Latest Inane Distraction

Jeremy Henzell-Thomas

Recently, a new furore has been generated by the Wikipedia entry on the Prophet Muhammad which includes two images of artworks by Persian Muslim artists depicting the uncovered face of Muhammad and used respectfully in a historical context to illustrate two episodes from the life of Muhammad. These are images that are freely available to anyone who owns copies of the books in question or who visits a museum or online archives of images. Indeed, figurative depictions of the Prophet were a significant part of late medieval Islamic art, though generally limited to secular contexts and to the elite classes who could afford fine art.

A petition mentioned in blogs, articles and emails now has well over 100,000 signatures demanding the removal of these illustrations. The petition states: In Islam pictures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other humans are not allowed…I request all brothers and sisters to sign this petition so we can tell Wikipedia to respect the religion and remove the illustrations.

What a crying shame it is that such non-issues are blown up out of all proportion into veritable firestorms by so many thoughtless Muslims, when there is such a need to discuss so many important issues in a thoughtful and intelligent way – among them, as Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim notes, The Common Word Statement and even the National Interfaith Statement Against Domestic Violence. Instead, these mechanical knee-jerk reactions are gifts to those who seek every opportunity to decry Islam and ridicule Muslims and can only exacerbate a situation in which Muslims and the Western media seem to be locked in an ever-descending spiral of ignorance and mutual loathing. This is only the latest in a series of lamentable pseudo-controversies which include, as Sheila Musaji notes, the Sudanese teddy bear incident, the Minnesota cab drivers who refused to carry blind passengers with guide dogs, the Malaysian court decision that Christians cannot use the word Allah, the Apple Mecca incident, and others.  I could add to this the ban by Muslim taxi drivers on passengers carrying bags of duty-free alcohol at a US airport, and the refusal by Muslim checkout staff at an English supermarket to handle bottles or cans of alcohol (for the latter, see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2558198.ece).

Let us be clear that the Western media show equal alacrity in exploiting such follies and misunderstandings as Muslims seem intent on promoting them, and it is now the turn of the Archbishop of Canterbury to be the whipping boy. Here is a good, wise and gentle man intent on initiating an intelligent and thoughtful discussion about the serious question of how secular society can best accommodate the needs and views of religious communities, who is being viciously savaged in the British media because very few people really want to understand what he intended to say in his remarks about shari’ah law in Britain, but prefer to use the word shari’ah simply as an easy hook to hang every incendiary prejudice and every pernicious intention to stoke up a clash between communities.

But back to the question of the Wikipedia illustrations.

Let us be clear that the spiritual preference for abstract over naturalistic or figurative art in Islamic tradition (which is best expressed in the works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, Titus Burckhardt and other “traditionalists” should not be equated with dogmatic prohibition and cannot justify any call for censorship of the images on Wikipedia.

However, for those who understand this distinction, I have compiled below some extracts from an article I wrote several years ago exploring that spiritual preference in Islam.

“It is a common misconception that the preference for calligraphic, abstract and geometric forms in Islamic art is a consequence of the supposed prohibition of all forms of representational art as derived from a selective reading and interpretation of certain verses (ayat) in the Qur’an and various sayings (ahadith) of the Prophet. Thus, the Islamic “position” is stereotypically and erroneously characterised as anti-representational and seen as having been compelled to follow an abstract and non-figurative direction as a result of opposition by devout Muslims to the use of any images of a representational nature.

Indeed, this absence of iconography or figural representation has led some scholars to contend that Islam is somehow opposed to art.  As recently as 1992, the naïve opinion has been advanced that “in Islam, religion remained the inhibitor of the arts.” [1] Such views are, of course, incomprehensible to Muslims, as they are to anyone who understands the relationship between art, spirituality and hikmah or wisdom , and anyone who recognises the ultimate aim of ars sacra (itself based on a scientia sacra) as a means of remembering God (dhikrullah) and as an aid in man’s return from the world of multiplicity to the world of Unity.

Others claim that the question of the degree of prohibition of figurative images in Islam is in fact a highly complex one, and to some extent this is true. For example, there is clearly lack of agreement amongst various authorities about whether it is permissible to depict living things, and there is evidence that the earliest generation of Muslims was not as troubled by figurative images as the devout of later generations [2].

It can also be argued that in the context of the time of the Prophet the Qur’anic proscription against idols (Qur’an 5:90), “applied only to pagan idols and not to all and any forms of figurative representation by artists” [3]. Muhammad Asad, translates the word ansab (literally ‘idolatrous altars’ in this ayat as ‘idolatrous practices’, commenting that he believes the term in this context has been used metaphorically and “is meant to circumscribe all practices of an idolatrous nature - like saint-worship, the attribution of ‘magic’ properties to certain inanimate objects, the observance of all manner of superstitious taboos, and so forth” [4].

The complexity of the issue is also highlighted by the traditional story of the actions of the Prophet on entering the sacred enclosure after his conquest of Mecca. Having circumambulated the Ka’bah, and overturned, one after another, the 360 idols set up by the pagan Arabs, he entered the Ka’bah and ordered the destruction of all but one of the paintings adorning its inner walls. According to one source, the painting which the Prophet ordered to be preserved was a representation of the Holy Virgin and the infant Jesus. Protecting this icon with both hands, the Prophet instructed ‘Uthman that all the others should be destroyed, including pictures of Abraham painted by a Byzantine artist. It is worth noting, however, that Martin Lings, in his beautiful account of the life of the Prophet, prefers another source which records that the painting of Abraham was also exempted from destruction (Martin Lings, Muhammad, Islamic texts Society, 1983, p. 302).  Lings also notes that yet other sources say that “all” the paintings were effaced without mention of any exceptions.

However, deliberations about the complexity of the issue can lead us away from the heart of the matter.  The essential point, which is obscured by legalistic disputes about the extent to which prohibition of images is justified, is that the preference for abstract forms in Islamic art did not arise from the negative avoidance of figurative representations inherent in “iconoclasm” or “iconophobia” but is reflective of the “aniconism” which is central to the Islamic spiritual perspective.

As Burchkardt explains: “If the Ka’bah is the heart of man, the idols that inhabited it represent the passions, which invest the heart and impede the remembrance of God. Therefore, the destruction of idols - and, by extension, the putting aside of every image likely to become an idol - is the clearest possible parable for Islam of the ‘one thing necessary,’ which is the purification of the heart for the sake of tawhid, the bearing of witness or the awareness that ‘there is no divinity save God.’ “ [5]

It cannot be emphasised strongly enough that the basis of aniconism is not a negative avoidance of what is thought to be proscribed but is a positive affirmation of the supremacy and primacy of God. Figurative images of sacred subjects are avoided not because they are forbidden, but because pictorial representations of this kind are simply incapable of encompassing the dimension of the sacred.  The Islamic artist therefore prefers “to leave the outer forms of nature (tajarrud) and the material world, and concentrate on the abstract, inner reality of things (mujarradat)” [6] .

The shortcomings of figurative images with regard to the depiction of sacred subjects is easily demonstrated even from the most revered paintings of the great Renaissance masters. When Michelangelo depicts God in The Last Judgement with the head of an old man attached to a young muscular body, he is trying to convey, in all sincerity, the co-existence of certain paradoxical attributes of God - that God is both the most wise and the most mighty. But it is only too evident to the unprejudiced eye that these particular attributes cannot be simultaneously translated in a literal form through the gross limitations of the pictorial medium, any more than it would be possible to depict the co-existence of other paradoxical, complementary and reciprocal attributes of God, such as those included in the traditional Islamic enumeration of the Ninety-Nine Names or Divine Attributes [7] : The Manifest (Az-Zahir) and The Hidden (Al-Batin); The Most Merciful (Ar-Rahman) and The Avenger (Al-Muntaqim); He Who Grants Life (Al-Muhyi) and He Who Brings Death (Al-Mumit); The Exalter (Ar-Rafi’ and the Abaser (Al-Khafid); The One Who Gives Abundantly (Al-Basit) and the One Who Takes Away (Al-Qabit); The One Who Causes Advancement (Al-Muqaddim) and The One Who Retards (Al-Mu’akhkhir).

The effect of trying to depict divine perfection, in which all opposites are reconciled and unified, through the medium of perishable human figures is to undermine the very objective itself, to reduce it to an absurdity, because it cannot even be remotely suggested by forms which, no matter how skilfully executed or aesthetically appealing, are located firmly in the domain of duality and are, by their very nature, the products of human conjecture, subjective imagination and ephemeral fashions of taste and style. Human forms inevitably embody particular gestures, expressions and accidental qualities with which we identify, and our response to these images is also coloured by the preferences and aversions associated with our individual conditioning, education and life experience.

All these limitations inherent in figural representations of sacred subjects simply draw us further away from what is sacred.  Instead of unveiling and bringing to light what is divine, and therefore guiding us as theomorphic human beings from the material order to our appointed place in the spiritual order, they crudely interpose further obscuring layers and veils between us and the divine. The longer we look at Michelangelo’s depiction of God with his arm outstretched pointing towards Adam’s finger in the act of Creation, the less able are we to penetrate to any understanding of the perfect harmony, congruity, proportion and order collectively expressed in the Names of God as The Creator (Al-Khaliq), The Maker (Al-Bari’ or the Fashioner and Shaper (Al-Musawwir) , but the more our right arm aches, so identified do we become with the literal reality of the limb itself. We cannot escape this limiting identification, because God is depicted with blatantly physical characteristics that we also possess in our limited bodily forms.

Such limitations also make it impossible to convey the co-existence and participation of other attributes of God in the act of Creation. For example, the attribute Al-Bari’ is also associated with the Name Ar-Rahman, the All-Merciful, for the perfect harmony invested in all things emanates from the One who wills infinite mercy and good for all creation. “My mercy covers everything” (Qur’an 7:156). The iconography of figurative imagery can never encompass the transcendent unity of diverse qualities, including those which are apparently antithetical, without lapsing into the grotesque. While it may be able to express a certain ambivalence (as, for example, in the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa), it cannot provide any unifying principle that can resolve such ambiguities and paradoxes. We are left at worst with absurd caricatures or at best with the speculative allure and fascination of unsolved riddles. In the case of the Mona Lisa’s smile, the riddle is still unsolved after half a millennium, and will doubtless continue to attract interminable and useless speculation.

It has been persuasively argued [9] that the adoption of perspective in Renaissance painting was far more than a technical procedure for conveying an impression of spatial extension in depth, but was symptomatic of a changing world view culminating on a global scale with the spatial discoveries of the world explorers such as Columbus [10] and Vasco da Gama. Such a world view espoused a number of radical new elements, including “a new interest in externalities” and “the point of view of a single observer, a human being, who no longer inhabits Eternity but time; no longer inhabits Infinity but space. … By the adoption of perspective the primal vision of unity is shattered beyond restoration….Pride in human reason takes the place of the paradigmatic universe created and inhabited by God and animated by His spirit” [10]. In Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ (1455-60), “light and space are outward, their domain no longer the inward journey of the spirit. Instead the physical space has been mapped, every form has been measured, every character made distinct and individual” and the figure of Jesus has been “relegated to the background - a mere counterweight to the three men in the foreground. This is a perfect symbol of the humanist cosmology.” [11]

This triumph of perspective in European naturalistic art is, in Islamic terms, the triumph of the gross visible world, the world of solid forms (‘alam al-khalq or ‘alam al-mulk wa shahada) , over the subtle, imaginal [12] realm, the world of analogies and similitudes (‘alam al-khayal or ‘alam al-mithal), which is also the angelic world, the kingdom of invisible forms (malakut), the intermediary mundus imaginalis perceived not by the senses but by the active Imagination, beyond historical time and space and beyond individualised portraiture. 

It has been pointed out in a discussion of Persian miniature painting that “to conceive of space as more than physical space there must exist a discontinuity between the space created by art and the physical space in which man lives in his profane life”. [13] What enabled the miniaturists to suggest the imaginal world was the use of perspectiva naturalis, [14] which conforms to the two-dimensional nature of the surface, rather than the perspectiva artificialis of the European figurative tradition, which attributes to that two-dimensional space the illusion of three dimensions.  The non-three-dimensional “qualitative” character of the space distinguishes it from the surrounding natural space and transposes the heroic scene to a “transhistorical world” imbued with mystical significance.  In this way the figures, plants and animals depicted are not reproductions of natural forms representative of the outer shell of reality, the mulk, but images suggestive of the primordial, paradisal environment of the malakut…..

….Islam eschews figurative representations in sacred art not because of prohibitive dogma but because of the objective realisation that such representations, even those classified as masterpieces of European religious art, cannot generally depict or suggest any level of reality above the mulk and therefore hold people back from developing higher perceptions beyond a merely aesthetic and culturally conditioned mode of response. It may not be easy to appreciate that these higher perceptions also transcend the strong emotional responses evoked by much religious art in the European figurative tradition.

It goes without saying that the “imaginal” world beyond the solid and visible world is not synonymous with either the “imaginary world” or the “world of the imagination” associated with subjective fantasy or personal imaginings, but is an actual, existent world of original forms which is accessible to the heart (qalb).  This is not the “heart” identified with emotion and split off from the “head”, the seat of reason, in Western psychology, but the faculty or organ in Islamic psychospirituality which is the source of vision, intuition and spiritual understanding, the locus where Knowledge and Being are combined, and which alone of all human faculties is capable of encompassing the Divine….

…..Burckhardt [20] explains that the contemplative function of Islamic art (its expression of “a state of soul that is open to the interior, towards an encounter with the Divine Presence” , subsumes two other notable characteristics: it is typically devoid of any “individual impulse, such that “the artist is effaced in the work”; and it reflects beauty objectively, avoiding the “illusion and seduction” which comes about through the disorder and limitation imposed by human subjectivity and by “individual or collective emotion” (to the extent that man is “emotionally divinised” in Greek art of the Classical period). When art reflects beauty objectively, its serenity is not muddied, disturbed or tarnished by emotion and neither is it entrapped by individualism or contaminated by egoism, but “it penetrates beyond duality”, acting as “a bridge which goes from the tangible world towards God”. 

The most objective expression of beauty, order and harmony and the higher states of knowledge and being reflected therein, lie utterly beyond the capability of direct representation, and can only be symbolised in the abstract and geometric forms characteristic of Islamic art and architecture. This insight emerges not from the domain of prohibitive dogma but from the domain of knowledge and verification. In the words of Ahmed Moustafa, “the not uncommon notion that religious interdiction prevented Islamic artists from depicting images from life and forced them into abstraction is unfounded and simply wrong. The fact is that Islamic civilisation found in Geometry a verification of its beliefs and a system which enabled artists to extend their creativity according to a law which is part of nature itself and offers an endless field of exploration. The direction and subsequent efflorescence of mainly abstract Islamic Art was the result neither of compulsion nor obligation but of choice.” [21]

For a proper understanding of Islamic art, and the place of Geometry as its bedrock, it is vital to realise that “its patterns, far from being mere abstract niceties, are nothing less than visual homage to God, expressed in His own immutable geometrical discipline.” [22] In other words, it is necessary to dispense with many wrong assumptions about the origins of Islamic art which can be found in conventional treatments of the subject and which betray no essential understanding of its scientific foundation, coercive governing principles and inviolable laws.

Many publications, in the absence of this deeper knowledge, tend to focus on superficial and incidental aspects of style and ornamentation, often within the context of chronological surveys compiled so as to present works according to historical periods and geographical provenance and illustrating supposed influences, developments and variations. Given this focus on the externalities of historicity rather than fundamental origins and governing principles, this approach has little or no explanatory power and one is merely left with vague philosophical and aesthetic statements that tend to be couched in flattering or obscure vocabulary, or the clutter of detailed references to artefacts, objects and museum pieces. Islamic art is not a merely decorative art derived from subjective preferences, but emanates from the certitude derived from exact and objective knowledge which is itself in conformity with the guidance revealed to all mankind in the Holy Qur’an and the prophetic traditions. 

Many examples of the “historical” and “stylistic” approach could be given, but one will suffice. We may learn, for example, about the niceties of what Islamic art has supposedly inherited from Byzantine or Sassanian precursors. We may learn that 6th century Byzantine art was already moving away from naturalistic portraiture and figures modelled from life (as opposed to human figures shaped by the conventions of physiognomy) and that there was a corresponding preference for geometric and stylised vegetal decoration [23], but, informative as this is, it does not help us to understand the true origin of the preference for geometric forms, which is located not in human history but in a trans-historical dimension which reflects the innate affinity of the properly attuned human soul to harmony, balance and proportion.

Indeed, this attunement is an actual “tuning” in the Pythagorean sense, an objective mathematical relationship between ratio and concord. As a constituent element of the innate disposition (fitra) of the human being, it also extends far beyond a merely aesthetic level of response, but encompasses the intellectual, moral and spiritual nature of the man or woman in harmony with the Creator and everything that He has created.

Ibn Khaldun emphasises the educative role of geometry [24] in fashioning the intellect: “Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one’s mind right…The mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error….the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.” [25]

It is equally important to emphasise that in the tradition of scientia sacra the educative role of geometry is not solely an intellectual one, but is also a purifying activity which connects the perception of truth with the attainment of goodness. For Ibn Khaldun, “the correct proportion….used in a moral as well as aesthetic sense is what is meant by the term beautiful and good”26 and he likens the impact of the science of geometry on the intellect to the cleansing effect of soap on the garment. In the words of Plato:  “There is a faculty in the mind of each of us which these (geometrical) studies purify and rekindle after it has been ruined and blinded by other pursuits, though it is more worth preserving than any eye since it is the only organ by which we perceive the truth.” And again, “[Geometry] has the effect of making it easier to see the form of the good. And that, we say, is the tendency of everything which compels the mind to turn to the region of ultimate blessedness which it must spurn no effort to see.”

Aesthetic and moral qualities are also equated in the Arabic word husn which encompasses not only the sense of beauty but also goodness, excellence and perfection. That beauty is also a manifestation of truth is expressed in those famous words from Ode on a Grecian Urn by the English poet, John Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, although it has to be said that the source of Keats’ epigram is the refined poetic sensibility and somewhat languid aestheticism associated with his brand of Romanticism rather than any understanding of the objective connection between truth and beauty and their relationship to a single Reality. 

In the Sophist, Plato equates lack of proportion not only with external ugliness but also with the derangement of the impulses in the soul which cause them to miss their mark.27

In his celebrated identification of the “truly good man” with the “faultless cube”,28 Aristotle brings happiness into the equation, making explicit the connection between the practice and contemplation of virtue, the stability of the happy man, who bears all the “chances of life” nobly and harmoniously, and the geometry of the perfect cube.

In this integrated conception of the human being, geometry is not merely a means of constructing pleasing patterns, nor even a pretty metaphor for the harmonious life, but is a healing and cleansing pursuit, a contemplative discipline and an objective science giving access to those glimpses of divine order, harmony and beauty and those higher states of knowledge and being which, to the Islamic “scientist of the art”, are incapable of being directly represented in figurative art.  The same conception is evident in the guiding maxim of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the inspirer of the twelfth century architecture of the Cistercian Order: “There must be no decoration, only proportion.”

The four disciplines of the Quadrivium in Classical education (Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music) were all concerned with the discovery of universal laws of order and harmony, and the ultimate goal of this education was not rational understanding but spiritual insight, the ability to perceive, with the inward eye, abstract heavenly patterns in concrete earthly forms. Many of the leading figures of the Renaissance including Leonardo da Vinci and Brunelleschi were instructed by Fra Luca Pacioli in the discipline of corpo transparente, the contemplation of Platonic solids made from transparent material and placed one within the other. This instruction had exactly the same purpose as the art of Islam - to facilitate the perception of the metaphysical truths behind all outer forms.

It is clear, too, that the “theory of human proportions” was seen in the Renaissance not only as “an expression of the pre-established harmony between microcosm and macrocosm” but also as “the rational basis of beauty”, to the extent that “The Renaissance fused, as we may say, the cosmological interpretation of the theory of proportions, current in Hellenistic times and in the Middle Ages, with the classical notion of ‘symmetry’ as the fundamental principle of aesthetic perfection.”29 Michelangelo’s dictum that “good painting is nothing but a copy of the perfection of God” is consonant with the Renaissance attempt to reinvest “even the practical theory of proportions” with “metaphysical meaning” and to “understand the work of art as a manifestation of the highest and most universal laws”, but, as I have already suggested in my earlier discussion of The Last Judgement, although the sincerity of his aim is beyond doubt, the figurative means at his disposal were actually incapable of addressing the subject of “the perfection of God”. 

Footnotes

1. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination, New York, Random House, 1992, page 193.
2. Robert Irwin, Islamic Art, London, Laurence King, 1997, page 35, points out that the columns of the 7th Century mosque in the Iraqi town of Jufa were topped by Persian capitals looted from Hira that featured monsters’ heads, wings and other figurative imagery, and that this demonstrates that even in a religious context the Muslims at that time “were not troubled by the presence in art of past civilisations or pagan figurative images, or images of living things.”
3 Ibid. page 80.
4. Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an, Dar al-Andalus, 1980, page 162.
5. Titus Burckhardt, The Spirituality of Islamic Art, in Islamic Spirituality : Manifestations, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, SCM Press, 1991, page 511.
6. Fatimah Ali, Worldview, Metaphysics, and Islamic Art, in Knowledge is Light : Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by Zailan Morris, ABC International Group, Inc., 1999.
7. See The Attributes of Divine Perfection, London, The Book Foundation, 1998.
8. John Lane, The Living Tree: Art and the Sacred, Green Books, 1988, page 30.
9. It is instructive to note that the year 1492, the “discovery” of the New World by Columbus, and often taken as the beginning of modern history in the Western school curriculum, was also the year of the fall of Granada to the Catholic monarchs, and the final demise of Islamic civilisation in al-Andalus, a civilisation noted for its multi-cultural perspective, inclusiveness, spirit of enquiry, and openness to diverse sources of knowledge and learning. The symbolism in relation to the discovery and application of perspective is inescapable: a self-evaluation of the roots of modern Western history as a single viewpoint, a mono-cultural Eurocentric perspective, in which the perceiver is no longer God, or man as khalifa, but Promethean man attributing to himself the power and glory which rightly belongs to God.
10. John Lane, 1988, op. cit., page 30.
11. Ibid. pages 30-31.
12. With regard to the central importance of the faculty of imagination in understanding the significance of both religion and human existence, William C. Chittick quotes this statement of Ibn cArabi “He who does not know the status of imagination has no knowledge whatsoever” (al-Futuhat al-makkiyya II:313.2). Chittick comments that this only sounds extreme if we do not understand what Ibn cArabi means by “imagination”. See Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, State University of New York Press, 1994, pages 11-12. 
13. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality, Ipswich, Golgonooza Press, 1987, page 178.
14. According to Nasr (ibid. page 178), perspectiva naturalis embodies “the geometric laws developed by Euclid and later by Muslim geometer and opticians such as Ibn al-Haytham and Kamal al-Din al-Farsi.”
20. Titus Burckhardt, ibid., page 506.
21. Ahmed Moustafa, Foreword to The Symmetries of Islamic Geometrical Patterns by S.J. Abas and A. S. Salman, World Scientific Publishing Company, 1994.
22. Ahmed Moustafa,ibid.
23. David Talbot Rice, Islamic Art, Thames and Hudson, 1975.
24. A recent article in the Times educational Supplement (August 10 2001) entitled “Plea for new angle on geometry study” reports the concern of mathematics education specialists about the decline of geometry study in British schools.  A report for The Royal Society reports a “drastic reduction” in the study of shape, space and measures. While the report draws attention to the serious repercussions of this lack of understanding of geometric principles for students entering university courses in science, engineering and architecture (and on more general development of spatial intelligence), it may well be that, in the light of such statements by Plato, Ibn Khaldun and others on the indispensable role of geometry in the education of the human being as a whole, more profound repercussions will be felt on an ethical and spiritual level in the contemporary world.
25. Ibn Khaldun, Al Muqaddimah, translated by Franz Rosenthal, abridged and edited by N.J. Dawood, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978, page 378. Quoted in Mathematics: The Islamic legacy by Q. Mushtaq and A.L. Tan, Noor Publishing House, Delhi, 1993, page 68.
26. Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, Penguin, London, 1970, page 120.
27. See F.M. Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1970, pages 179-180.
28. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I. 11, sec. 11.
29. Erwin Panofsky, op. cit., page 119.

The American Muslim (TAM)

Summary

• Democracy building remains an uphill struggle in most Muslim countries.
• The explanation of why so many Muslim countries are not democratic has more to do with historical, political, cultural, and economic factors than with religious ones.
• Nevertheless, many Muslim activists, using broad and sometimes crude notions of secularism and sovereignty, consider democracy to be the rule of humans as opposed to Islam, which is rule of God.
• Scholars of Islam agree that the principle of shura, or consultative decision-making, is the source of democratic ethics in Islam. But a great deal more reflection is required to clarify the relationship of shura to democracy.
• In establishing the compact of Medina, Prophet Muhammad demonstrated a democratic spirit quite unlike the authoritarian tendencies of many of those who claim to imitate him today. He chose to draw up a historically specific constitution based on the eternal and transcendent principles revealed to him but also sought the consent of all who would be affected by its implementation.
• Conservative Muslims tend to view the western world’s advocacy of human rights as a modern agenda by which the West hopes to establish its hegemony over the Muslim world, whereas reformist Muslims tend to be more receptive to new ideas, practices, and institutions. Reformists stress the need for continuity of basic Islamic traditions but believe that Islamic law (sharia) is historically conditioned and needs to be reinterpreted in light of the changing needs of modern society. Secular Muslims look to the experiences of the secular West as models in an effort to promote their countries’ development.
• Despite the degree to which human rights are suppressed in Muslim countries, two grassroots movements are struggling to change this situation. Women are beginning to effectively assert their rights, and in some countries young people are agitating against government oppression.
• The United States has generally accepted the fiction that repression in the Muslim world is the best way to prevent Islamism from growing as a threat to the West and to U.S. interests.
• Those countries that have weak civil society structures and authoritarian regimes are fertile ground for terrorists. If western countries want to suppress terror then they must foster civil society and support movements that bolster democratic trends within these repressive political systems.
• The United States should: (a) increase substantially the amount of U.S. foreign assistance that is spent on promoting democracy in the Muslim world; (b) provide governments and key interest groups in Muslim societies with incentives to engage in democratic reforms; (c) take seriously the existing framework of multilateral agreements and treaties that bear on democratization, such as those in the field of human rights; and (d) promote regional accountability mechanisms.

Introduction

An election banner in the Spring 2000 Iranian elections reads: "Obtaining Women’s Rights, Freedom of Thought, and Social Justice."
Photo courtesy Jon Alterman

Is it true, as some claim, that democracy is basically a western concept and ideology and therefore fundamentally at odds with the values and principles of Islam? If so, then the Muslim world, consisting of 55 countries populated by more than 1.4 billion people, is doomed to dictatorship and oppression. Moreover, Muslims would have to choose between their religion and democracy. In introducing the discussion, Radwan Masmoudi asserted that there is no inherent contradiction between Islam and democracy and that democratic ideals and principles are also Islam’s ideals and principles. Thus, the explanation of why so many Muslim countries are not democratic lies in historical, political, cultural, and economic factors, not religious ones. "Not only must we understand these reasons, but we must also find out what needs to be done to correct this situation. What can we as Americans and especially as American Muslims do to promote democratization in Muslim countries?"

U.S. administrations have generally chosen to build strong ties with those regimes in Muslim countries that seem to support American interests, ignoring their records on human rights, accountability, and democracy. "We have been content to support dictators in the Muslim world, as long as they are allies and do what we want them to do. What are the implications of this policy for the Muslim world? Could this policy lead to the growth of political extremism, political violence, and anti-Americanism?" asked Masmoudi. If we want to change our policy and promote democratization in the Muslim world, can we do it without destabilizing the region and allowing extremist groups to come to power? Do we have to choose between democracy and stability? Or is there a way to promote democratization without causing havoc and anarchy?

While these issues have been asked for many years, they have taken on new significance since September 11. Particularly important is the question of whether the lack of democracy in Muslim states has provided fertile ground for the recruitment of supporters for al Qaeda and other extremist groups. Moreover, has the growth of Islamic extremism reduced the likelihood that democracy and Islam can co-exist?

The Problem of Democracy in the Muslim World

Democracy building remains an uphill struggle in most Muslim countries, asserted Laith Kubba. Progress in liberalizing societies, modernizing institutions, and developing infrastructures is generally slow and limited. Worldwide democratic trends have in most cases failed to transform authoritarian and patriarchal political cultures in Muslim countries. Military officers, westernized elites, and tribal/traditional leaders usually keep a monopoly over state power. The weakness of democracy in many Muslim countries is also evident in the many indicators used by western institutions to measure the extent of openness of states and societies. This is most evident in political violence, violations of human rights, and abuse of public office.

Most Muslim countries are at an impasse. Dysfunctional, corrupt, repressive states are neither willing nor capable of reform. Apathy and despair breed radicalism. The failure of secular politics in Muslim countries provides fertile ground for the rise of political Islam. Moderation of Islamic political movements is closely linked to inclusion in the political process, while radicalization is linked to repression and exclusion.

Most Muslim countries, like others in the developing world, are driven by deep needs and a passionate quest for modernity, development, and dignity, Kubba said. For the past several decades, their vision of a better future was anchored in a simple version of a strong central state with a top-down reform approach. That vision was thought to be more likely to succeed than democracy, which offered a complex, multi-institutional participatory system anchored in individualism and liberal values.

Failure of strong secular states to meet the increasing demands of newly educated societies led to soul searching for alternatives. Following the 1979 revolution in Iran, social and political groups became aware of the power of religion in mobilizing public support. Islam, whose ownership, interpretation, and use are open to all, continues to be dragged into the arena as a sharp instrument that may be used by the ruler and opposition alike, by the modernists and conservatives alike, and by groups on the left or right of the political spectrum. Various Islamic groups agree on favoring Islam over secularism but differ on their leanings toward democracy or authoritarianism.

Over the past two decades, as the communist development model failed and models of both secular and Islamic governance failed to deliver solutions to growing social and economic needs, Muslim intellectuals started to advocate democracy and human rights. They did so not only to achieve modernity, development, and dignity, but also to ensure a better practice of Islam.

In Kubba’s view the key to understanding the root cause of the democracy predicament in Muslim countries does not lie in the text or in the tradition of Islam but in the context of modernity, politics, and culture. The rather arbitrary use of the term Islamic to describe states, regions, and even people adds to the confusion and blurs the real issues. Although a solution may require addressing Islam and its interpretations, the basic issue is not about Islam but about Muslims. It is not about religion but about modernity. Islam is only one element in the history and culture of the 55 Muslim nations in more than eight distinct regions. Their cultures are influenced to widely varying degrees by the traditions and values of Islam. They are as diverse as the cultures of predominantly Christian nations from Latin America to the Philippines.

Despite the rather bleak situation at present, Kubba noted that there are grounds for hope. Education is having a significant impact. In addition, there are strong pressures toward liberalization, both because the media continuously provide alternative models from other countries and because states in the Muslim world can no longer function without fundamental structural reforms and without more effective partnerships being developed between the government and the governed. "Looking ahead, I am an optimist. We need to watch the discourse taking place among Muslim intellectuals by which they are bringing about authentic Islamic interpretation of how they should govern themselves in modern societies. I have a lot of faith that this debate will lead to democracy and to full recognition of human rights, but it will come with local language and interpretation and it will be approached from a totally different perspective than we are accustomed to in the West."

Compatibility of Islam and Democracy

In considering the compatibility of Islam and democracy, Muqtedar Khan noted, one must recognize that it is false to claim that there is no democracy in the Muslim world. At least 750 million Muslims live in democratic societies of one kind or another, including Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Europe, North America, Israel, and even Iran. Moreover, there is little historical precedent for mullahs controlling political power. One exception is Iran since the revolution in 1979 and the other is the Taliban in Afghanistan. For the preceding 1500 years since the advent of Islam, secular political elites have controlled political power.

Two extremely different groups, one from the West and one from the Muslim world, have been arguing that Islam and democracy are incompatible. On the one hand, Khan pointed out, some western scholars and ideologues have tried to present Islam as anti-democratic and inherently authoritarian. By misrepresenting Islam in this way they seek to prove that Islam has a set of values inferior to western liberalism and is a barrier to the global progress of civilization. This misconception also promotes Israel’s claim to be the sole democracy in the Middle East.

On the other hand, many Muslim activists, using broad and sometimes crude notions of secularism and sovereignty, consider democracy to be the rule of humans as opposed to Islam, which is rule of God. Those who reject democracy falsely assume that secularism and democracy are necessarily connected. But secularism is not a prerequisite for democracy; religion can play a significant role in democratic politics, as it does in the United States.

As Khan noted, Muslim scholars agree that the principle of shura is the source of democratic ethics in Islam. While there is considerable truth in this claim, one must also recognize the differences between shura and democracy before one can advance an Islamic conception of democracy based on shura. Shura is basically a consultative decision-making process that is considered either obligatory or desirable by different scholars. Those who choose to emphasize the Quranic verse "and consult with them on the matter" (3:159) consider shura as obligatory, but those who emphasize the verse praising "those who conduct their affairs by counsel" (43:38) consider shura as merely desirable. There is no doubt that shura is the Islamic way of making decisions, but is it obligatory? Does a government that does not implement a consultative process become illegitimate? We do not have decisive answers to those questions.

More and more Muslim intellectuals agree that consultative and consensual governance is best. Jurists, however, are more doubtful or ambivalent. Many jurists depend on non-consultative bodies for their livelihood and are in no hurry to deprive themselves of the privileges that non-consultative governments extend to them. But even if shura is considered supportive of democratic process, the two are not identical, Khan asserted. What is clear is that a great deal more reflection is required among leading Muslim thinkers about the nature of shura and its relationship to democracy, as well as other Islamic principles that relate to democratic practice.

As Khan pointed out, the rise of political Islam has made the concept of Islamic sovereignty central to Islamic political theory and that concept is often presented as a barrier to any form of democracy. The Quranic concept of sovereignty is universal (that is nonterritorial), transcendental (beyond human agency), indivisible, inalienable, and truly absolute. God the sovereign is the primary law-giver, while agents such as the Islamic state and the Khalifa (God’s agents on earth) enjoy marginal autonomy necessary to implement and enforce the laws of their sovereign. At the theoretical level, the difference between the modern and Islamic conceptions of sovereignty is clear. But operational implications tend to blur the distinction.

Democracies are seen by some Muslim activists as systems in which human whim is the source of law, whereas Islamic principles are transcendental and cannot be undermined by popular whim. But what many of them fail to understand is that democratic institutions are not just about law. They are also about prevention of tyranny by the state. Regardless of where sovereignty is placed theoretically, in practice it is the state which exercises it and not God. Even though God was supposedly sovereign in Taliban’s Afghanistan, it was in fact the Taliban that was sovereign there; Mullah Omar ruled, not God. Sovereignty in fact is always human, whether in a democracy or an Islamic state. The issue is not whether people are sovereign, but how to limit the de facto sovereignty of people, since they reign under both systems. Democracy with its principles of limited government, public accountability, checks and balances, separation of powers, and transparency does succeed in limiting human sovereignty. The Muslim world, plagued by despots, dictators, and self-regarding monarchs, badly needs the limitation of human sovereignty, Khan argued. Many Muslim activists also fail to recognize that Islamic governance is interpreted differently by different Islamic scholars, and hence is not nearly as immutable as they contend.

While sovereignty belongs to God, it has been delegated in the form of human agency (2:30). The political task is to reflect on how this God-given agency can be best employed in creating a society that will bring welfare and goodness to the population both now and in the future. God is sovereign in all affairs, but God has exercised sovereignty by delegating some of it in the form of human agency. God cannot become an excuse for installing and legitimizing governments that are not accountable to their citizens and responsive to their needs.

Khan described a precedent set by Prophet Muhammad that demonstrates how democratic practices and theories are compatible with an Islamic state. This is the compact of Medina, referred to by some scholars as Dustur al-Madina (the Constitution of Medina). After Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 CE, he established the first Islamic state. For 10 years he was not only the leader of the emerging Muslim ummah (community) in Arabia but also the political head of Medina. He ruled as political head as a result of the tripartite compact that was signed by the Muslim immigrants from Mecca, the indigenous Muslims of Medina, and, significantly, the Jews of Medina. Although the Medina compact cannot serve as a modern constitution, it can serve as a guiding principle.

The compact of Medina also illustrates, Khan pointed out, the proper relationship between divine revelation and a constitution. Muhammad, if he so wished, could have merely indicated that the truth revealed by God would serve as the constitution and forced this revelation upon both the Muslim and non-Muslim residents of Medina. Demonstrating instead a democratic spirit quite unlike the authoritarian tendencies of many of those who claim to imitate him today, Muhammad chose to draw up a historically specific constitution based on the eternal and transcendent principles revealed to him but also sought the consent of all who would be affected by its implementation. Thus, the first Islamic state was based on a social contract, was constitutional in character, and had a ruler who ruled with the explicit written consent of all the citizens of the state. Today, Khan argued, Muslims need to emulate Muhammad and draw up their own constitutions in a manner that is both appropriate for their specific circumstances as well as based on eternal principles.

The constitution of Medina established the importance of consent and cooperation for governance. According to this compact, Muslims and non-Muslims were equal citizens of the Islamic state, with identical rights and duties. Communities with different religious orientations enjoyed religious autonomy. The constitution of Medina established a pluralistic state—a community of communities. The principles of equality, consensual governance, and pluralism were central to the compact of Medina. Khan noted that it is amazing to see how Muhammad’s interpretation of the Quran was so democratic, tolerant, and compassionate, while some contemporary interpretations, like that of the Taliban, are so harsh, authoritarian, and intolerant.

Islam and Human Rights

Muslim views on human rights can be grouped into three broad categories, according to Mahmood Monshipouri. The first group is Muslim conservatives. They tend to look to both the classical and medieval periods for inspiration. Conservatives adopt a communitarian view that sees the individual as part of the community, to which he or she owes certain obligations. Conservatives’ emphasis on drawing boundaries around the community is expressed not only in stipulations about dress for women (hijab) and the repression of women’s sexuality, but also in the proclamation of a different way of life and of a transformation of mind by bringing the faithful back to the proper practice of the faith and tradition.

These conservatives tend to view the western world’s advocacy of human rights as a mechanism by which the West hopes to establish its hegemony over the Muslim world. They have vehemently objected to several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), including Articles 16 and 18, which deal with equality of marriage rights and freedom to change one’s religion or belief. They also object to the provisions on women’s rights, questioning the equality of gender roles and obligations. Islam, they argue, prohibits the marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man. Apostasy (ridda) is forbidden and is punishable by death.

Muslim conservatives challenge the idea of natural reason as an independent source of ethical knowledge. According to conservatives, following past traditions (taqlid) and returning to established norms in times of crisis are two cardinal rules of Islamic orthodoxy. Among the most prominent of the conservative leadership advocating these positions are such scholars as Sayyid Abu al-A’la al-Maududi (1903­79), Hassan al-Banna (1906­49), Sayyid Qutb (1906­66), and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902­89).

Muslim reformists or neomodernists, in contrast, are more receptive to non-Islamic ideas, practices, and institutions, according to Monshipouri. They argue that material progress is necessary to bring about human and economic transformation within an Islamic framework. They stress the need for the continuity of basic Islamic principles but believe that Islamic law (sharia) is historically conditioned and needs to be reinterpreted in light of the changing needs of modern society.

A comparison between two reformist positions helps explain the contending perspectives within this camp. Some reformists have argued that what conservatives call divine law in reality only reflects the interpretation of a few specialists. Abdolkarim Soroush, an Iranian philosopher, has argued that "divine legislation in Islam is said to have been discovered by a few and those discoverers think that they have privileged access to the interpretation of this law" (Soroush and Charles Butterworth at the Middle East Institute, November 21, 2000, "Islamic Democracy and Islamic Governance," www.mideasti.org/html/b-soroush.html). Having questioned the monopoly over interpretation by one group or class, Soroush argues the need for a dialogical pluralism between those inside and outside of religious intellectual fields. Human rights, according to Soroush, lie outside religion and are not solely intrareligious arguments based on jurisprudence (fiqh). Rather, they belong to the domain of philosophical theology (kalam) and philosophy in general (Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, ed. Mahmoud Sadri and Ahman Sadri, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 128­129). Some values, he argues, cannot be derived from religion. Human rights is the case in point. The language of religion and religious law is essentially the language of duties, not rights.

Sheikh Rached al-Ghannouchi, leader of the Tunisian An-Nahda political party, articulates a different vision and rationale for reform. For Ghannouchi, the central question is how to free the Muslim community from backwardness and dependence on the "Other." Reconciling Islam and modernity, according to Ghannouchi, involves introduction of democracy and freedom, both of which are consistent with Islamic principles. The community not the individual remains the ultimate reality, and democracy and freedom of thought are tools that Muslims should use to achieve their community’s goals and defend its interests (Abdou Filali-Ansary, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: The Challenge of Secularization," Journal of Democracy, vol. 7, no. 2, 1996, pp. 76­80).

The third group, according to Monshipouri, are the Muslim secularists. Secular Muslims look to the experiences of the secular West as guiding models in an effort to promote their country’s development. Secularists often support policies and programs that are grounded in pragmatic considerations. Muslim secularists are reluctant to replace secular laws with sharia. To secularists, Islamic practices such as shura and bay’a (a binding agreement that holds rulers to certain standards and governs relations between rulers and the ruled) have failed to support individual political participation and to provide a basis for democratic accountability by governments. Secular rule is the prevailing pattern in the Muslim world; with the exception of Iran since 1979, Sudan since 1989, and Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Muslim world is ruled by secular regimes.

The Muslim world is indeed in uncertain transition, with its youth facing cultural disorientation and its political scene dominated by internal power struggles. The greatest threats to human rights in the Muslim world are not religious or theological but political. In a globalizing world, concern has been expressed about whether Muslims will lose the ability to control their own economies, power, and cultural assets. Many in the Muslim world, however, see hope in such a globalizing world. The youth, women’s organizations, the press, intellectuals, and Islamic reformers all see great opportunities, especially if they become part of the global civil society.

The biggest question is how to adopt new ideas and policies while maintaining religious and cultural integrity. Monshipouri argues that to maintain such a balance, the Muslim world’s elites, scholars, and activists must interpret Islamic values and social norms in a manner consistent with modern and internationally recognized human rights. The western world must treat Muslim masses as partners in the struggle against human rights abuses, while helping to empower reformist voices and civil society.

Despite the degree to which human rights are suppressed in Muslim countries, two grassroots movements are struggling to change this situation. The first is the women’s movement and the second is the youth movement. Over the long term they can have enormous impact on human rights in these countries. Women are beginning to effectively assert their rights, and in some countries young people are agitating against governmental oppression and corruption.

Monshipouri concluded his presentation by making three points. First, the greatest threat to human rights in the Muslim world comes not from Islam but from economic, political, and educational forces. Second, human rights struggles in the Muslim world will be lost or won on the national level, not on the international level; it is up to Muslims themselves to decide how much respect to accord human rights. Third, those countries that have weak civil society structures and authoritarian regimes are fertile ground for terrorism. If western countries want to suppress terror then they have to foster civil society and support those movements that express dissenting voices within these repressive political systems. Western countries can also apply economic and political pressure on these authoritarian regimes to encourage fundamental change.

What Can the United States Do?

Neil Hicks noted that while the shortcomings in human rights and democratization of many U.S. allies in the region have been noted in official statements, particularly in the U.S. State Department’s annual country reports on human rights practices, policy has tended toward the preservation of the status quo for fear of what might replace it. In the Arab world especially, authoritarian leaders have traded on their self-proclaimed status as bulwarks against Islamic extremism.

For the most part, the United States went along with the fiction that repression in the Muslim world was the best way to prevent Islamism from growing as a threat to the West and to U.S. vital interests. In the name of confronting radical Islam, Hicks said, basic rights and freedoms were virtually extinguished in Tunisia and severely curtailed in Egypt. In Turkey, Malaysia, and Algeria, authoritarian regimes employed anti-democratic measures to suppress Islamic movements that were gaining popular support.

The greatest casualties of this broad-brush repression were basic values of tolerance, political pluralism, and free speech that are essential to democracy. The institutions of democracy, like an independent judiciary, free political parties, civil society, and the separation of powers, were undermined. On realizing that the non-violent, democratic path to power or reform was blocked, some felt vindicated in embracing violence as the only way of bringing about change. Polarization, extremism, and political violence all flourished. It is worth mentioning that liberal, pluralistic forms of political Islam have been a particular casualty of this unpromising political climate. On the one hand, they have been subjected to repression by state authorities as undesirable expressions of political dissent. On the other, they have been marginalized by some within the political Islamic movement itself for being utopian and ineffectual.

At the same time as many U.S. allies in the region were stifling democracy (with only token criticism at best from the West), the United States strongly criticized its foes in the region as enemies of democracy and human rights. There is no doubt that the governments of Iran and Sudan and that of the Taliban in Afghanistan were richly deserving of such criticisms, but the violations of human rights perpetrated by these regimes in particular were added to the indictment against Islamism in general. The mostly unspoken accepted wisdom became that U.S. allies in Egypt, Jordan, or Tunisia may have their failings, but we have to choose between them and the Iranian mullahs, the Taliban, and Sudan’s National Islamic Front, and that choice is easily made. Human rights also became a vehicle for criticizing other regional foes like Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Hicks asserted that many people in the Muslim world and elsewhere quickly recognized a double standard in U.S. advocacy of human rights and democracy in the region. If the United States is so critical of Iran for not better protecting women’s rights, then why is it silent about the abject situation of women in Saudi Arabia? If the Iraqi people deserve to choose their own leaders, then what about the Egyptian people or the Tunisian people? In Afghanistan, the United States was willing to cooperate with the mujahedin, and to call them freedom fighters, during the conflict with the Soviet Union, even though their commitment to democracy was virtually non-existent, Hicks pointed out.

There has been a glaring contradiction between U.S. rhetoric supporting democracy and human rights, on the one hand, and a policy that held major violators of human rights like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be key strategic allies while at the same time condoning repression by other allies, like Egypt, on the other hand. The perception of double standards was exacerbated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where many Muslim observers thought that Israel was allowed to disregard international law with impunity, whereas Muslim states like Iraq or Libya could be subjected to international sanctions or even armed intervention for their departures from international norms.

U.S. policy, Hicks continued, recognized the importance to regional stability and political development of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first Bush administration and the Clinton administration expended considerable effort in promoting the Madrid process and then the Oslo process. However, even these well-intentioned initiatives, especially in the middle and later phases of the Oslo process, had negative repercussions for democratization in the region. Supporting the "peace process" became an article of faith and the main goal of U.S. policy in the Arab world. Dissent from this orthodoxy was regarded as unhelpful by the United States. U.S. allies claimed that they were taking great political risks for peace by going against the views of their people, and this assertion was generally accepted. U.S. policy did not seem to question what was creating this public mood that was supposedly hostile to peace with Israel and whether more repression was the way to deal with it. In fact, many U.S. allies were fanning the flames of anti-Israeli sentiment and exploiting such feelings as a distraction from domestic problems and as another reason to keep the lid on political dissent.

Out of this morass of contradictions and double standards it is not surprising that some hostility toward U.S. policy developed, and some skepticism about the values the United States claimed to espouse. Indeed, some in the Muslim world expressed open hostility toward democracy and human rights as alien western values, and found an enthusiastic audience in doing so. Hicks asserted that this hostility is largely a reaction to the use to which such values had been put by cynical authoritarian governments and by the West, rather than a lack of identification with common values of justice and human dignity. Unfortunately, a kind of self-fulfilling stereotyping of Muslim attitudes to human rights and democracy has developed, partly as a result of the disaffection expressed by many in the Muslim world towards "democracy" and "human rights" as they have experienced them in practice.

What can be done? Hicks noted that promoting democracy abroad is not something new for the U.S. government, even if there has been less of it in the Muslim world than elsewhere. There are lessons to be drawn from Eastern Europe and Latin America, regions where democratic advances since the end of the Cold War are discernible, and from the former Soviet Union and parts of Africa, where signs of progress are often less apparent. Perhaps the most important lesson is that there is no single prescription that will ensure a transition to democracy. Local conditions vary enormously. In the vast and diverse Muslim world it will be necessary for the U.S. government to develop country-specific plans to promote democracy.

Hicks then offered four recommendations:

• Increase substantially both the proportion and the amount of U.S. foreign assistance that is spent on promoting democracy in the Muslim world. It is important to note that simply spending more is not a solution by itself. We can learn from the example of U.S. foreign assistance to Egypt, which has remained at high levels even while foreign aid budgets elsewhere were evaporating. In Egypt the United States has funded democratization projects and supplied hundreds of millions of dollars of other civilian assistance while, by any measure, democratic freedoms have contracted. To succeed the United States must demand accountability from the recipient governments. The question then becomes, is the United States willing to have a more adversarial relationship with regional leaders, and perhaps to see some of them overthrown, as part of the messy process of promoting democracy? These leaders, after all, are valued because they are seen as assisting in the protection of vital U.S. national interests.
• Provide governments and other key interest groups in Muslim societies with incentives to encourage democratic reforms. A major commitment to foreign assistance to the Muslim world by the U.S. government would provide an attractive incentive to recipient governments to embark on the path to reform. Foreign assistance should be linked to clear progress in strengthening institutions of accountability. Here domestic interest groups independent of existing power elites take on a particular importance, because existing leaders typically have little interest in diluting their own privileges. When providing foreign assistance, the U.S. government must insist that there be a free press, that the judiciary be independent, and that civil society organizations operate free from governmental interference.
• Incentives should come not in the form of aid alone, which inevitably has some patronizing connotations. Real partnerships, especially in the field of trade, but also in a host of other areas, including cultural and educational ones, are also important. The positive impact on democratic reforms of Turkey’s accession process to the European Union is a good case in point. Because many sectors of Turkish society anticipate benefits from EU membership, there has been a considerable groundswell of support for the stringent reforms required by the European Commission. The process of change has been and is painful to many entrenched interests. Nevertheless, the business community has put pressure on the government to press forward with political as well as economic reforms. Business elites in other Muslim states, who recognize the benefits of participating in the global marketplace, and who also recognize that the price of entry is compliance with international standards, are a largely untapped resource for democratic change.
• Take seriously the existing framework of multilateral agreements and treaties that bear on democratization, such as those in the field of human rights. Since there is skepticism over the U.S. government’s motives in promoting democracy in the Muslim world, it is wise to disarm doubters by embracing multilateral approaches with like-minded governments wherever possible. Treaty bodies within UN human rights mechanisms—like the Human Rights Committee and the Committee Against Torture, which oversee state compliance with treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture and other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment—are highly regarded for the integrity of the work of their members, who sit as independent experts. Their work is often favorably compared to the politicized machinations of the UN Human Rights Commission, for example. Yet these effective bodies are chronically underfunded. Members operate with little or no research support and their findings are virtually unknown beyond the world of human rights specialists. It would surely be a sound investment for the U.S. government to lend its financial and political support to the work of these under-appreciated institutions.
• Promote regional accountability mechanisms. The Muslim world is lacking in regional accountability mechanisms. The great virtue of such mechanisms is that they cannot be accused of being alien or inauthentic because they are of the region over which they exercise jurisdiction. Again, Turkey provides an example of the merits of such mechanisms. One of the reasons for Turkey’s advantage over other Muslim states in its progress towards democratization is its longstanding participation in the human rights mechanisms of the Council of Europe, especially its acceptance of the right of individual citizens to petition the European Court of Human Rights and its agreement to be bound by the rulings of the court. The benefits go beyond the individual cases that have been heard before the court. Turkey’s legal community and human rights organizations increasingly know and make use of the fact that there is a functioning mechanism for them to resort to in the face of state violations. The United States should make great efforts to promote effective regional mechanisms of accountability within existing regional institutions like the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the League of Arab States.

Contributors

• Laith Kubba is senior program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He formerly was director of International Relations at the Al Khoei Foundation in London and he was the founder of the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue, a London-based network of liberal Islamists. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Wales. (laith@ned.org)
• Muqtedar Khan is director of international studies at Adrian College in Michigan. He was born in India. He is vice president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and sits on the board of directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. He has a Ph.D. in international relations and Islamic studies from Georgetown University and is widely published. (muqtedar@yahoo.com)
• Mahmood Monshipouri is professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. He was born in Iran. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and is author of several books, including Islamism, Secularism, and Human Rights in the Middle East. (mahmood.monshipour@quinnipiac.edu)
• Neil Hicks is director of the Human Rights Defenders’ Protection Program at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He was a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in 2000­2001. He was also a researcher at Amnesty International in London and a human rights project officer at Birzeit University in the West Bank. (hicksn@lchr.org)

Islam and Democracy by David Smock: Special Reports: U.S. Institute of Peace