There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship between the religion of Islam and democracy (the form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state) among Islamic political theorists and other thinkers, the general Muslim public, and Western authors.
Many Muslim scholars have argued that traditional Islamic notions such as shura (consultation), maslaha (public interest), and ʿadl (justice) justify representative government institutions which are similar to Western democracy, but reflect Islamic rather than Western liberal values. Still others have advanced liberal democratic models of Islamic politics based on pluralism and freedom of thought. Some Muslim thinkers have advocated secularist views of Islam.
A number of different attitudes regarding democracy are also represented among the general Muslim public, with polls indicating that majorities in the Muslim world desire a religious democracy where democratic institutions and values can coexist with the values and principles of Islam, seeing no contradiction between the two.
Traditional political concepts
Quran Muslim democrats, including Ahmad Moussalli (professor of political science at the American University of Beirut), argue that concepts in the Quran point towards some form of democracy, or at least away from despotism. These concepts include shura (consultation), ijma (consensus), al-hurriyya (freedom), al-huqquq al-shar'iyya (legitimate rights). For example, shura (Al Imran – Quran 3:159, Ash-Shura – Quran 42:38) may include electing leaders to represent and govern on the community's behalf. Government by the people is not therefore necessarily incompatible with the rule of Islam, whilst it has also been argued that rule by a religious authority is not the same as rule by a representative of God. This viewpoint, however, is disputed by more traditional Muslims. Moussalli argues that despotic Islamic governments have abused the Quranic concepts for their own ends: "For instance, shura, a doctrine that demands the participation of society in running the affairs of its government, became in reality a doctrine that was manipulated by political and religious elites to secure their economic, social and political interests at the expense of other segments of society," (In Progressive Muslims 2003).
Sunni Islam Deliberations of the Caliphates, most notably the Rashidun Caliphate, were not democratic in the modern sense rather, decision-making power lay with a council of notable and trusted companions of Muhammad and representatives of different tribes (most of them selected or elected within their tribes).
In the early Islamic Caliphate, the head of state, the Caliph, had a position based on the notion of a successor to Muhammad's political authority, who, according to Sunnis, was ideally elected by the people or their representatives,Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (2004), vol. 1, p. 116–123. as was the case for the election of Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Al Khattab, Uthman, and Ali as Caliph. After the Rashidun Caliphs, later Caliphates during the Islamic Golden Age had a much lesser degree of collective participation, but since "no one was superior to anyone else except on the basis of piety and virtue" in Islam, and following the example of Muhammad, later Islamic rulers often held public consultations with the people in their affairs.
The legislative power of the Caliph (or later, the Sultan) was always restricted by the scholarly class, the ulama, a group regarded as the guardians of Islamic law. Since the law came from the legal scholars, this prevented the Caliph from dictating legal results. Sharia rulings were established as authoritative based on the ijma (consensus) of legal scholars, who theoretically acted as representatives of the Ummah (Muslim community). After law colleges (madrasas) became widespread beginning with the 11th and 12th century CE, a student often had to obtain an ijaza-t al-tadris wa-l-ifta ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in order to issue legal rulings. In many ways, classical Islamic law functioned like a constitutional law.
Bangladeshi Islamic scholar Khandaker Abdullah Jahangir said in a scholarly interview about Islam and democracy that,
Salafi view
Salafism as an ideology and movement has close ties to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi monarchy from its beginning in the 18th century has partnered with Wahhabism as military tool and ideological support to their monarchical rule. The ruling monarchy uses their scholars (termed salafis, wahhabis, and Najdis) to defend their authoritarian rule and subjugate the masses. Because the Saudi monarchs perceive democracy and the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their rule, they have occasionally used extremist Salafi scholars (e.g. madkhalis) to oppose democracy at home and in other Arab states, and claim that democracy is haram and even shirk. For example, after the election of Mohamed Morsi, the Saudi authorities used their Salafi proxies in Egypt to counter the Muslim brotherhood, proclaim that democracy is shirk, and promoted terrorist attacks in the Sinai against the Egyptian military. The violence and destabilization caused by radical Salafi jihadist groups in the Sinai led to the ousting of Morsi and overthrow of democracy in Egypt. Thus, there are different opinions among Salafi scholars regarding democracy depending on the political climate in Saudi Arabia and freedom of expression. Over the decades, different Salafi groups around the world have changed and evolved, from initial quietism to fully embracing political engagement to promote their ideology.
Some Salafi scholars opine that democracy is haram and shirk in Islam and allege that it overrules the Shari'a (e.g. by potentially permitting alcohol and riba if the people vote for it), but they legitimize the opportunity to use democracy to come to power and to vote to establish Islamic rule and encourage voting to choose the better between evils, among these scholars are Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Uthaymeen, Abdullah al-Ghudayyan, Abdullah Quyud, Abdur Razzaq Afifi, Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia: Grand Mufti Shaykh Abdul Aziz Ash-Shaikh, Shaykh Abdul Muhsin Al-Abbad, Shaykh Wasiullah Abbas and Saudi Arabia's most senior fatwa panel of scholars, "Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta", all echoed similar calls to encourage Muslims to vote.
Khandaker Abdullah Jahangir in his book ("Hadiser Namey Jaliyati") (Forgery in the Name of Hadith) says about the interpretation of Hadith of democratic Islamist parties about Islamic politics,
Conclusively, Salafi opinions on democracy can be categorized in the following ways, depending on the scholar and the context: That democracy is haram and perhaps even shirk if it is used to overrule fundamental tenets of the Shari'a, like making forbidden things permissible (i.e. making the haram legal), or if it is a threat to the rule of the Saudi monarchy. That participating in democracy outside of Saudi Arabia and the Arab world (e.g. in the West and India) is good (with a variety of opinions on the details) if the participant is voting for the lesser of two evils or for an Islam-promoting candidate.
Fahad bin Salih Al-Ajlan said in his book Muharrar Fi Siyātush Sharīʿah, "The electoral system in Islam is valid, but it is not the conventional democratic system. In this, political candidates must be Muslim and male, voters must also be Muslim and male, women and non-Muslims can participate in the Shura but cannot vote; the term of office of the head of state may be fixed, but it is not obligatory, but permissible." He also said that the ruling on participation in Islamic politics is that if a person, after maintaining his own faith, has the ability to make political reforms as much as he can, then it is encouraged, otherwise participation in it is considered haram. And reforms must be made in matters that already existed, in which there is an opportunity for reform and benefit, but no new haram or bid'ah can be created in the name of benefit; and participation in matters that are completely haram, such as interest, drug production, etc.
Shia Islam According to the Shia understanding, Muhammad named as his successor (as leader, with Muhammad being the final prophet), his son-in-law, and cousin Ali. Therefore, the first three of the four elected "Rightly Guided" Caliphs recognized by Sunnis (Ali being the fourth), are considered usurpers, notwithstanding their having been "elected" through some sort of conciliar deliberation (which the Shia do not accept as a representative of the Muslim society of that time). The largest Shia grouping—the Twelvers branch—recognizes a series of Twelve Imams, the last of which (Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Hidden Imam) is still alive and the Shia are waiting for his "reappearance".
Theoretical perspectives on democracy
Al-Farabi The early Islamic philosopher, Al-Farabi (c. 872–950), in one of his most notable works Al-Madina al-Fadila, theorized an ideal Islamic state which he compared to Plato's The Republic. Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet, instead of the philosopher king envisaged by Plato. Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by Muhammad, as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with God whose law was revealed to him. In the absence of the prophet, Al-Farabi considered democracy as the closest to the ideal state, regarding the republican order of the Rashidun Caliphate as an example within early Muslim history. However, he also maintained that it was from democracy that imperfect states emerged, noting how the republican order of the early Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun caliphs was later replaced by a form of government resembling a monarchy under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties.
Varieties of modern Islamic theories Muslih and Browers identify three major perspectives on democracy among prominent Muslims thinkers who have sought to develop modern, distinctly Islamic theories of socio-political organization conforming to Islamic values and law: The rejectionist Islamic view, elaborated by Sayyid Qutb and Abul A'la Maududi, condemns imitation of foreign ideas, drawing a distinction between Western democracy and the Islamic doctrine of shura (consultation between ruler and ruled). This perspective, which stresses comprehensive implementation of sharia, was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s among various movements seeking to establish an Islamic state, but its popularity has diminished in recent years. The moderate Islamic view stresses the concepts of maslaha (public interest), ʿadl (justice), and shura (consultation). Islamic leaders are considered to uphold justice if they promote public interest, as defined through shura. In this view, shura provides the basis for representative government institutions that are similar to Western democracy, but reflect Islamic rather than Western liberal values. Hasan al-Turabi, Rashid al-Ghannushi, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi have advocated different forms of this view.