Is Islam compatible with democracy?

Islamic law is absolutely incompatible with true democracy. It is a theocratic system with Allah alone at its head. Allah's law is interpreted by a ruling body of clerics. There is no room for a secular political system in which all people are treated as equals.
Quran

Quran (33:36) - "It is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any option about their decision."
Quran (18:26) - "Allah... makes none to share in His Decision and His Rule"

Quran (45:21) - "What! Do those who seek after evil ways think that We shall hold them equal with those who believe and do righteous deeds,- that equal will be their life and their death? Ill is the judgment that they make." Unbelievers are not equal to Muslims. This is dutifully reflected in Islamic law.

Quran (5:44) - "Whosoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed is among the disbelievers." A government run by "true" Muslims is a theocracy. Anything less, including democracy or secularism, is a sign of apostasy. This is why terrorists feel justified in their fight for an Islamic state.

Quran (39:9) - "Are those who know equal to those who know not?"

Quran (4:141) - "...And never will Allah grant to the unbelievers a way (to triumphs) over the believers." This is at odds with democracy, which allows anyone to serve in a position of power over others regardless of religious belief.

Quran (63: - "...might (power) belongs to Allah and to His messenger and to the believers;" ie. not to anyone else.

Quran (5:49) - "So judge between them by that which Allah hath revealed, and follow not their desires, but beware of them lest they seduce thee from some part of that which Allah hath revealed unto thee" Allah's Quran takes priority over the desires of the people. A democratic nation is by nature one that is not governed by Islamic law, meaning that a Muslim citizen would have divided loyalty. It's clear from this verse which side he must choose.

Quran (12:40) - "...Allah hath sent down no authority: the command is for none but Allah..." Sometimes translated as "None have the right to legislate except Allah."

Quran (4:123) - "Not your desires, nor those of the People of the Book (can prevail): whoever works evil, will be requited accordingly. Nor will he find, besides Allah, any protector or helper."

Quran (4:59) - "O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority from among you..."Obedience is strictly limited to a government drawn from believers, not from the broader community. This verse has also been used to justify submission to autocratic rule, however oppressive it may by. As an Arab tradition put is: "tyranny is better than anarchy."

Quran (9:3) - "...Allah and his messenger are free from obligation to the unbelievers..." Muhammad used this "revelation" to dissolve a standing treaty and chase non-Muslims from their homes if they wouldn't accept Islam. This practice would be incompatible with democratic rule, in which everyone is considered equal.
Hadith and Sira

Muslim (19:4294) - "When you meet your enemies who are polytheists [Christians...], invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them ... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them" Non-Muslims are intended to be subordinate to Muslims.

Bukhari (88:219) - "Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler."

Bukhari (89:251) - Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever obeys me, obeys Allah, and whoever disobeys me, disobeys Allah, and whoever obeys the ruler I appoint, obeys me, and whoever disobeys him, disobeys me." The ruler referred to here is the Caliph, who is appointed by Allah, not by popular election. Democratic rule has no legitimacy against the will of the Caliph who, as we see by chain of reference, has the authority of Allah.

At-Tirmidhi 169) - There is no obedience to anyone who is in disobedience to Allah
Notes

To quote the 20th century cleric, Sayyid Qutb, "It is Allah and not man who rules. Allah is the source of all authority, including legitimate political authority. Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value. Therefore, Allah's law should govern the society; not man's."
Islamic law is based on the Quran and the Sunnah,which are set and fixed. There is no need for addition or correction. Neither is there any room for the law of fallible man (particularly non-Muslims). Nor should it take the place of Allah's perfect law, which tells us everything we needs to know about daily life (down to which hand a man should "hold it in" while urinating).
If Allah is not the authority then anything less is a secular dictatorship, including rule by a Muslim people. As an American-Muslim jurist complained in a recent fatwa, "Democracy gives free reign to the authority of the Ummah, and puts no ceiling on it."
Also, the law of one person, one vote is essential to democracy but heretical to Islam. According to the Quran, the testimony of a woman is worth only half that of a man, and Jews and Christians are never to have equal standing with Muslims under the law (and certainly never to be in a position of authority over Muslims). Atheists are to be killed outright.
Reform-minded Muslims prefer to ignore all of this and instead point to Quran (42:38), where the phrase "[Muslims] who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation" is used as evidence that Islam is compatible with democracy. Also recruited to this end is an oft-repeated hadith which has Muhammad supposedly saying, "My community will never agree on an error." On this, is based the much ballyhooed concept of "ijma" or consensus among Muslims for determining matters of Islamic law.
But ijma, has always been controversial and rarely practiced within Islam. Some interpret it to mean "consensus of the scholars" - having nothing to do with the opinion of the community at large. Even when its legitimacy is recognized, ijma is accepted only as a secondary (or tertiary) form of authority, behind the fiqh councils. Also, it bears pointing out that ijma and consultation are applicable only within the Muslim community (and probably limited to the "consensus" of males).
American scholar Jamal Badawi (who is often billed as a 'moderate') says that it is the duty of Muslims to bring about Islamic rule: "The Quran is full of direct and indirect, implicit and many times explicit indications that show that the establishment of the Islamic order is a requirement on Muslims whenever possible." He also scoffs at secularism: “If a Muslim believes that there is any human being who has the right to make laws other than Allah then obviously this is total divergence from the path of Islam. Or any person who believes that secularism is superior to the law of Allah, he's violating the basic Quranic tenets"
Muhammad and the caliphs who suceeded him ruled on Allah's authority and did not submit their decisions to the will of the people. Neither is there any tradition of democracy in the 1400 year history of Islam in the Middle East and Persia. If the entire world became Muslim overnight, it is highly doubtful that democracy would last, since it would be applicable only to the most mundane of matters not already decided by Islamic law.
As another cleric, Sufi Muhammad, recently put it, "True Islam permits neither elections, nor democracy."

African slaves were often castrated by their Muslim masters. Few survived to reproduce, which is why there are not many people of African descent living in the Middle East, even though more slaves were taken out of Africa in the 1300 years of Arab slave trading than in the 300 years of European slavery. The 400,000 slaves brought to America, for example, have now become a community of 30 million, with a much higher standard of living than their African peers.

Islam Means 'Peace'


The Myth:

Muslim apologists sometimes claim that the root word of Islam is “al-Salaam,” which is "peace" in Arabic.


The Truth:

An Arabic word has only one root. The root word for Islam is “al-Silm,” which means “submission” or “surrender.” There is no disagreement about this among Arabic or Islamic scholars. al-Silm (submission) does not mean the same thing as al-Salaam (peace), otherwise they would be the same word.

Submission and peace can be very different concepts, even if a form of peace can be brought about by forcing others into submission. As the modern-day Islamic scholar, Ibrahim Sulaiman, puts it, "Jihad is not inhumane, despite its necessary violence and bloodshed, its ultimate desire is peace which is protected and enhanced by the rule of law."

In truth, the Quran not only calls Muslims to submit to Allah, it also orders them to subdue people of other religions until they are in a full state of submission to Islamic rule. This has inspired the aggressive history of Islam and its military and demographic success in conquering other cultures.

Islam is Tolerant
of Other Religions


The Myth:

Religious minorities have flourished under Islam. Muslims are commanded to protect Jews and Christians (the People of the Book) and do no harm to them. In Sura 109, the Quran says, "To you, your religion. To me, mine."

The Truth:

Religious minorities have not “flourished” under Islam. In fact, they always dwindle to mere shadows after a few centuries of persecution and discrimination. Some were converted from their native religion by brute force, others under the agonizing strain of dhimmitude.

What Muslims call “tolerance,” others correctly identify as institutionalized discrimination. The consignment of Jews and Christians to dhimmis under Islamic rule means that they are not allowed the same religious rights and freedoms as Muslims. They cannot share their faith, for example, or build houses of worship without permission. (See this link for rules imposed by the Islamic State)

Historically, dhimmis have often had to wear distinguishing clothing or cut their hair in a particular manner that indicates their position of inferiority and humiliation. They do not share the same legal rights as Muslims, and must even pay a poll tax (the jizya). They are to be killed or have their children taken from them if they cannot satisfy the tax collector’s requirements.

For hundreds of years, the Christian population in occupied Europe had their sons taken away and forcibly converted into Muslim warriors (known as Jannisaries) by the Ottoman Turks.

It is under this burden of discrimination and third-class status that so many religious minorities converted to Islam over the centuries. Those who didn’t faced economic and social hardships that persist to this day and are appalling by Western standards of true religious tolerance and pluralism.

For those who are not “the People of the Book,” such as Hindus and atheists, there is very little tolerance to be found once Islam establishes political superiority. The Quran tells Muslims to “fight in the way of Allah” until “religion is only for Allah.” The conquered populations face death if they do not establish regular prayer and charity in the Islamic tradition (ie. the pillars of Islam).

Tamerlane and other Muslim warriors slaughtered tens of millions of Hindus and Buddhists, and displaced or forcibly converted millions more over the last thousand years. Islamists in Somalia behead Christians. In Iran, they are jailed.

One of the great ironies of Islam is that non-Muslims are to be treated according to the very standards by which Muslims themselves would claim the right to violent self-defense were the shoe on the other foot. Islam is its own justification. Most Muslims therefore feel no shame in the ingrained arrogance and double standard.
There are about 500 verses in the Quran that speak of Allah’s hatred for non-Muslims and the punishment that he has prepared for their unbelief. There is also a tiny handful that could be construed to say otherwise, but these are mostly earlier verses that many scholars consider to be abrogated by the later, more violent ones.
As for Sura 109, any true Quran scholar will point out that the purpose of the verse was to distinguish Islam from the gods of the Quraysh (one of which was named "Allah" rather than to advocate religious tolerance for non-Muslims.

At the time that he narrated this very early verse, Muhammad did not have any power, and thus no choice but to be "tolerant" of others. By contrast, there was no true tolerance shown when he returned to Mecca with power many years later and demanded the eviction or death of anyone who would not convert to Islam. In fact, he physically destroyed the cherished idols of the very people he addressed in Sura 109.
If tolerance simply means discouraging the mass slaughter of those of a different faith, then today's practice of Islam generally meets this standard more often than not. But, if tolerance means allowing people of other faiths the same religious liberties that Muslims enjoy, then Islam is fundamentally the most intolerant religion under the sun.

Jihad Means
'Inner Struggle'


The Myth:

Jihad simply means 'struggle' and really just refers to a peaceful striving against sin rather than a holy war to spread Islam.

The Truth:

In Arabic, "jihad" means struggle. In Islam, it means holy war.

The Quran specifically exempts the disabled and elderly from Jihad (4:95), which would make no sense if the word is being used merely within the context of spiritual struggle. It is also unclear why Muhammad and his Quran would use graphic language, such as smiting fingers and heads from the hands and necks of unbelievers if he were speaking merely of character development.

With this in mind, Muslim apologists generally admit that there are two meanings to the word, but insist that “inner struggle” is the “greater Jihad,” whereas “holy war” is the “lesser.” In fact, this misconception is based only on an a single hadith that Islamic scholars generally agree was fabricated.

By contrast, the most reliable of all Hadith collections is that of Sahih Bukhari. Jihad is mentioned over 200 times in reference to the words of Muhammad. Each carries a clear connotation to holy war, with only a handful of possible exceptions (dealing with a woman's supporting role during a time of holy war).

takuradua:
Jihad Means
'Inner Struggle'


The Myth:

Jihad simply means 'struggle' and really just refers to a peaceful striving against sin rather than a holy war to spread Islam.

The Truth:

In Arabic, "jihad" means struggle. In Islam, it means holy war.

The Quran specifically exempts the disabled and elderly from Jihad (4:95), which would make no sense if the word is being used merely within the context of spiritual struggle. It is also unclear why Muhammad and his Quran would use graphic language, such as smiting fingers and heads from the hands and necks of unbelievers if he were speaking merely of character development.

With this in mind, Muslim apologists generally admit that there are two meanings to the word, but insist that “inner struggle” is the “greater Jihad,” whereas “holy war” is the “lesser.” In fact, this misconception is based only on an a single hadith that Islamic scholars generally agree was fabricated.

By contrast, the most reliable of all Hadith collections is that of Sahih Bukhari. Jihad is mentioned over 200 times in reference to the words of Muhammad. Each carries a clear connotation to holy war, with only a handful of possible exceptions (dealing with a woman's supporting role during a time of holy war).

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