Both democracy and Islam are abstractions with vague definitions, since each word has been applied to contradictory practices. When we speak of democracy do we mean ancient Athens, the United States, or Europe, or India, or Israel, or Uzbekistan? Let us grant that there are no pure democracies, and that when we use the word we are referring to tendencies. Our critique of any given society depends on our analysis as to how far and in what way it is fulfilling the ideal.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines democracy as "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation, usually involving periodically held free elections" (Merriam-Webster 307). Given this definition, some Westerners have made the assumption that democracy and Islam cannot coexist. They cite the autocratic rulers, warlords, and extremist clerics who have wielded power in nations where Islam is strongest (Hughes 1). In view of this assumption, however, only Senegal and Mali out of 47 Muslim-majority nations are ranked by New York's Freedom House as fully free (Trofimov 1). Yet supporters of Islamic democracy point to the fact that 4 to 7 million Muslims in the United States are asking an evermore
active role in American politics, and that politicians from both parties are seeking their votes. Freedom House points out, moreover, that "half of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims live under democratically elected governments in countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey" and goes on to point out democratic tendencies strengthening in Gulf States such as Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait (Hughes 2).
It's instructive for Americans, who regard our democracy as the be-all and end-all of democracies, to be aware of the serious undemocratic elements of our system, such as the inordinate power of money and lack of democratic control of our mass media, whe...