By Yussuf Abdel Hadi, Hamburg
In 1993, the American Orientalist Bernard Lewis observed a fascinating paradox: Among all non-Western civilizations, Islam should have had the best conditions for democratic development. Due to its shared Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage, Islam was culturally closer to the West than any other civilization. However, political reality presents a completely different picture—one that, to this day, is largely characterized by authoritarian regimes and democratic deficits. The contradiction between potential and reality arises from theological and political disparities. At the core of this issue lies the conflict between two concepts of sovereignty: democratic popular sovereignty versus divine sovereignty, known as hakimiya.
While democracy holds that the people are the ultimate source of legitimacy, many Islamic societies insist on the absolute sovereignty of God. If God is the only legitimate sovereign, how can human beings enact laws that may deviate from Sharia? The issue becomes even more problematic when it comes to individual rights and freedoms, revealing a fundamental philosophical contradiction. Liberal democracy, deeply shaped by the legacy of the Enlightenment, is based on the idea of autonomy and the inalienable rights of the individual. These rights are understood as inherent and universal. In contrast, fundamentalist Islamic tradition does recognize rights and duties but derives them from divine law—they are not “natural” or “inalienable” but rather granted by God and subject to religious conditions.
It remains to be seen how Syria’s political development will unfold after Assad’s fall. Experience shows that many Islamic movements view democracy at best as a tactical tool for seizing power, rather than as a system that determines what is right or wrong through rational discourse and the “unforced force of the better argument” (Jürgen Habermas). This issue is exemplified by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the leading thinkers of the Muslim Brotherhood and still a widely cited Islamic jurist. His attempt to reconcile Islamic governance with democratic principles fails due to a fundamental contradiction: By insisting that all laws must be compatible with Sharia and that unelected religious scholars should have the final authority over democratic decisions, he undermines the very core of democracy from within. His emphasis on divine sovereignty as the ultimate source of legitimacy effectively grants religious authorities a veto power over the will of the people.
For the Islamic world, this issue is particularly severe: While Western democracies have at least constitutional safeguards and established liberal institutions, most Muslim-majority countries lack fundamental protective mechanisms. Additionally, a weak liberal civil society often faces a dominant Islamist movement that strongly influences public discourse. However, the obstacles to democratic development are not solely religious in nature. In many countries, traditional tribal structures act as additional barriers. The extent to which Arab states remain class-based societies is particularly evident in the autocratically ruled Gulf states. Some observers argue that these challenges are further exacerbated by the historical experience of Western colonialism in many Muslim societies. Liberal democracy is often perceived as a Western colonial concept.
The rejection of “foreign” ideas through demonization remains a common tactic to this day: Whether democracy, liberalism, or secularism, they are presented to the public as colonial forces that threaten faith, family, and community. However, upon closer examination, the rejection of democratic values as colonialist appears to be a superficial argument—especially given the fact that the Islamic world has embraced numerous other Western achievements without fundamental reservations, including modern education systems, healthcare, urban planning, and economic models.
Moreover, postmodern Western theories—originally developed within an enlightened and self-critical discourse—are selectively imported and instrumentalized by Islamist actors hostile to modernity. These theories are then used to justify the rejection of liberal democracy and human rights as a supposed liberation from “epistemic violence” or “colonial remnants.” It is important to recognize that the rejection of foreign ideas has not always been characteristic of Islam. The Islamic Golden Age would have been unthinkable without an intensive engagement with Greek, Persian, and Indian thinkers. The works of Islamic jurisprudence are deeply influenced by these intellectual traditions.
Despite promising historical preconditions, establishing stable democratic systems in the Islamic world has proven to be extraordinarily difficult. What options does the Islamic world have? Three potential paths emerge:
- One possibility is an Islamic illiberal democracy, where the people can elect and remove their leaders, but governance remains strictly bound to divine law.
- A second option consists of undemocratic, nationalist regimes—whether secular, religious, or hybrid in nature. Examples include Baathist or Kemalist regimes. While such systems may guarantee a degree of religious freedom, they often define national identity in ethnically exclusive terms. They manage the tension between religion and modernity through authoritarian control without allowing genuine democratic participation.
- The third possibility is represented by liberal-democratic forces, which have emerged particularly in Tunisia and segments of Turkish civil society. Even in Morocco, despite the dominant role of the king, a growing secular movement is actively advocating for reforms. For these movements, popular sovereignty is important but not absolute—it must be limited by constitutional guarantees of individual rights.
The Arab Spring has dramatically exposed these weaknesses. In Syria, the uprising against the Assad dictatorship did not lead to democracy but instead resulted in a devastating civil war. Ironically, figures with radical Islamist pasts, such as Ahmed al-Sharaa, are now emerging as supposedly moderate “partners of necessity” for the West. It is a familiar pattern: As in Afghanistan, religious extremists are rebranded as freedom fighters.
Does this mean that democracy in the Islamic world is doomed? The future remains uncertain—not only in Syria but in many countries across the region. Those who remain hopeful do so in the belief that history follows a teleological logic and that the synthesis of freedom, democracy, and Islam may be closer than the present suggests.
