"A Point of View: Democracy and Islamic law"

[applegrove]

A Point of View: Democracy and Islamic law

by Roger Scruton at BBC News

"SNIP................................


The Egyptian example is even more pertinent. The Muslim Brotherhood has always sought to be a mass movement, seeking to establish itself by popular support. But its most influential leader, Sayyid Qutb, denounced the whole idea of the secular state as a kind of blasphemy, an attempt to usurp the will of God by passing laws that have a merely human authority. Qutb was executed by President Nasser, who came to power in a military coup.

And ever since then the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army have played against each other. The Brotherhood aims for a populist government and won an election that it took to authorise the remaking of Egypt as an Islamic Republic. The posters waved by Morsi's supporters did not advocate democracy or human rights. They said: "All of us are with the Sharia." The army replied by saying no, only some of us are.

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Moreover, precisely because Sharia has not adapted, nobody really knows what it says. Does it tell us to stone adulterers to death? Some say yes, some say no. Does it tell us that investing money at interest is in every case forbidden? Some say yes, some say no.

When God makes the laws, the laws become as mysterious as God is. When we make the laws, and make them for our purposes, we can be certain what they mean. The only question then is "who are we?" What way of defining ourselves reconciles democratic elections with real opposition and individual rights? That, to my mind, is the most important question facing the West today. It is important because, as I shall argue next week, we too are giving the wrong answer.




..............................SNIP"

[David__77]

1. Nasser was right.

He treated the MB fairly.

[applegrove]

2. I don't know enough about Egypt and

the MB to have an opinion on that. I‘m just really, really disappointed in Morsi. He didn‘t even try to run a real democracy. He ran a “what‘s mine is mine and what‘s yours is mine-ocracy“.