Fattah, Moataz A. Democratic Values in the Muslim World
John K. Cox
Fattah, Moataz A. Democratic Values in the Muslim World. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. xi + 209 pages. Cloth, $49.95.
Observers of northern Africa, the Balkans, and southern Asia with an affinity for “clashes of civilizations” like to stress Islam’s general otherness and incorrigibility; they have long tended to short-circuit their well-meaning opponents’ objections by blurting out the question, “So why are there no real democracies in the Muslim world?” The answer to this question grew even more topical after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but it was always bedevilled by inexactness.
Moataz A. Fattah, an assistant professor of political science at both Cairo University and Central Michigan University, has considerably refined the questions and the assumptions on the debate surrounding the purported “core affinity between Islam and autocracy” (p. 125). His book constitutes a major empirical contribution to a discussion that is important for scholarly and political reasons. Fattah begins by agreeing with the observation that democratic governments are indeed few and far between in majority-Muslim countries. But he then deftly problematizes and challenges the generalizations about uniformity of opinion among Muslim communities and about the connection between type of government and public opinion.
The methodology providing the data for this multilingual study came from a 2002 survey distributed in thirty-two countries. The survey usually consisted of fifty questions. The number of respondents was 31,380–a large sample indeed. In order to sharpen the survey instrument and arrange for its distribution in person and by e-mail, Fattah worked with academics and other intellectuals in over a dozen countries to hone the questions and run focus groups for further discussions. The book also makes judicious use of data from other recent polls that shed additional light on particular subjects. Appendices explain the methodologies used in data collection and processing.
Appendix 2 of the volume at hand contains an English-language version of survey. Many of the questions involve issues of tolerance, especially of Christian or Jewish minorities; others seek to pinpoint the level of tolerance of political dissidents, other Muslims (Shiia or Sunnis), and people of varying lifestyles. Some questions aim to characterize the respondent–for instance, according to history of alcohol consumption or political and intellectual role models. Some questions broach very weighty issues: Does democracy substitute the will of the masses for the will of Allah? Does Islam constitute a particular political ideology (as opposed to being an attitude toward politics)? Another very important substantive question has to do with the practice of shura, or consultation among religious leaders and scholars: Does shura provide a precedent within Islam for the procedures of democracy?
Insights into the intellectual world, moral concerns, and practices of governance in Islamic society can help encourage the growth of democracy in Muslim lands. This book supplies many such insights. Obviously, shura should be encouraged. Another Islamic practice, ijtihad (inductive, independent, interpretive reasoning), has also been used to justify political pluralism, most notably of late in the works of the Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But agents of democratization must remember that democracy has been partially discredited in the past because of unrealistic expectations about the prosperity and power it will bring. It is also important to remember that support for democratic values is highest among Muslims who have lived for at least a few years in a democratic country–a testament to the importance of communication and travel. The role of religious scholars, the ulama, in shaping public opinion is tremendous, another argument for abandoning a purely secular approach to democratization. Education predisposes people to pro-democratic attitudes, but youth does not necessarily do so. Association of controversial U.S. foreign policies with democracy lessens support for the latter, but nonetheless a majority of respondents show a “high degree of dissatisfaction with the ruling elite” (p. 85) in their countries and also evince a willingness to make sacrifices to make changes. (The reasons for the stability of these governments, a historian would argue, can be derived from recent colonial and Cold War history.) Finally, this exploration of attitudes should convince us that the introduction of elections will indeed benefit Islamist traditionalists in the short run; the West must be prepared to accept that and work to promote other democratic values during that time, not declare ideological war on the new governments.
The place to begin in understanding Fattah’s conclusions is to look afresh at the old opposition “Islam-democracy.” It is unrealistic, for instance, to expect laissez-faire legal attitudes towards gambling or rights for gays and lesbians, but one can expect increasing support for the political participation of women and the very concept of legislation itself –legislation, that is, outside of what is haram (forbidden) in Islam. Islam is inherently political because as a religion it is irresistibly and elementally social and corporate, so it is natural to expect the democratic institutions that emerge in Muslim societies to be religiously inflected, sometimes strongly so.
In tabulating the results of his surveys, Fattah assigns responses to one of four categories, not two as in the prevailing draconian dichotomy in Western shorthand. Attitudes or values are described as traditionalist Islamist (which include extremist elements), statist secularist (which include non-Islamist dictatorial elements), modernist Islamist, and pluralist secularist. Results from individual countries vary considerably, with, for instance, Saudi Arabia ranking first among traditionalist respondents with forty-six percent, while Turkey, Egypt, and Gambia all come in below five percent. Statists are highest in Tajikistan and India, with Senegal, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia charting a hefty sixty percent or more of modernist Islamist views. In the aggregate, the combination of modernists-plus-pluralists, which Fattah considers to be the potential alliance most amenable to democracy, adds up to over seventy-three percent of survey respondents. It is obvious that Muslim political values are far from monolithic. And while not all modernist Islamists support democracy, many do, and that is Fattah’s opening to predict likely avenues for the cultivation and spread of democracy in the Islamic world. Fattah also reminds us that the Christian governments of Europe looked quite different six or seven centuries ago than they do today; in effect, he maintains that Islam will likely evolve as a social system the same way Christianity did.
This book is recommended for all libraries. Scholars and students of democratization and of politics in Muslim states will find it very useful.
John K. Cox, Ph.D.
Professor of History
North Dakota State University
Fargo, North Dakota
COPYRIGHT 2008 Pi Gamma Mu
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
