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.
This article originally appeared in Philosophy & Social Criticism (vol. 37, No. 4), pp. 459–470, Copyright © 2011 by (Special Issue: Alessandro Ferrara , Volker Kaul , David Rasmussen (eds.), “Realigning Liberalism: Pluralism , Integration, Identities. Reset-Dialogues İstanbul Seminars 2010”). Reprinted by Permission of SAGE Publications, Ltd.
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Ahmad, I. (2016). Democracy and Islam. In: Benhabib, S., Kaul, V. (eds) Toward New Democratic Imaginaries - İstanbul Seminars on Islam, Culture and Politics. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41821-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41821-6_12
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