Democracy and islam

Irfan Ahmad

pp. 125-136

in: Seyla Benhabib, Volker Kaul (eds), Toward new democratic imaginaries, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

The dominant debate on Islam and democracy continues to operate in the realm of normativity. This article engages with key literature showing limits of such a line of inquiry. Through the case study of India's Islamist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, I aim at shifting the debate from textual normativity to demotic praxis. I demonstrate how Islam and democracy work in practice, and in so doing offer a fresh perspective to enhance our understandings of both Islam and democracy. A key proposition of this article is that rather than discussing the cliché if Islam is compatible with democracy, or Islam should be democratized, we study the "hows' of de-democratization in Muslim societies.