"Why Democracy and Why Now?"
Address by Abdulaziz Sachedina
University of Virginia
Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy,Fourth Annual
Conference Washington, DC
May 16, 2003

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is indeed an
honor for me to share my views about religion and democracy
tonight. There has not been any other time in the history
of the Muslim peoples when they were required to evaluate
their political heritage critically in the context of
modern political developments. Although it has not reached
the level of obsession, the developments in the political
culture today are challenging Muslim thinkers to deliberate
relentlessly in order to increase political consciousness
among Muslim peoples. I am aware of the hurdles that are in
place to obstruct dissemination of democratic ideas
connected with civil society and civic responsibility among
Muslim citizenry. Undoubtedly, these ideas empower the
people to demand the minimum from their leaders, whether
political or religious - that is, accountability of those
who hold public offices. And, yet, not to take a stance in
such matters in public has made the Muslim intellectual
irrelevant to the ongoing struggle to self-empowerment
among Muslim peoples.

Our secure academic position in the Ivory Tower has made us
oblivious of our moral responsibility to the people.
Ironically, it is this indifference to the political
empowerment of the average people on the streets of Cairo,
Tehran, or Karachi that has provided the religious
leadership - the Ulama - an opening to become the sole
spokesperson for the contents of people's political and
social education. It is worth keeping in mind that our
academic discourse is least accessible to the average
educated reader in the Muslim world. In contrast, the ulama
communicate in the language of the people, reinforcing the
traditional and sometime conformist attitudes towards the
governments in power. It is this latter sociological fact
that needs our undivided attention today. The response to
"Why Democracy, why now?" must be sought in the prevailing
moral numbness and political unconsciousness in the Muslim
world.

It is the moral indifference to political and social
injustices that grips our people around the world. And,
although I shall argue that the revival of democratic
ideals of Islam are dependent upon
intellectual-cum-religious discourse that is constructed in
the universities in the Islamic world, the dissemination of
this discourse cannot come about without taking religious
factor seriously in Muslim collective conscience. I do not
want to convey that Muslim public is religiously oriented
and, therefore, we need to make democracy appealing to them
by fictitiously "Islamizing" this discourse. Rather, my
major concern is to show to the learned and the lay in
Muslim societies that democratic ideals are very much part
of the Islamic ethical culture that speaks about human
responsibility and accountability in this and the next
world. Instead of prescribing a shortcut to secularism as a
guarantor of liberal democracy, our intellectual endeavors
need to be geared towards demonstrating that at the core of
Islamic belief system is relationship at all levels of
human existence. Since Islam is existentially to be
preserved in nurturing and maintaining relationships, then
it is to be expected that Islam will grant humanity its
basic freedom in negotiating as well as maintaining all
social relationships with a sense of equality of human
dignity and freedom of human conscience. This is the area
where one can show the overlapping consensus between
secularity and a religious ideology. Without falling into
the trap of all out support for secularization, which
appears unacceptable to the traditional religious leaders,
one can seek the consensus that is operative in forging
ordinary human relationships between peoples of diverse
cultures and religious affiliations based on a practical
sense of justice and fairness. To achieve that end, a
question might arise as to: Why do we need to care for the
ulama and their obscurantist approach to every day issues
in the social and political realms?

Why now? This question is very much connected with the
assessment of the situation that is being perpetrated by
the religious establishment in the Muslim world. We need to
take seriously the impact that seminaries are having on the
political consciousness of Muslim peoples. It is well known
historical fact that without the endorsement of some of the
"court appointed preachers"(wu'aaz al-salatin) Muslim
autocrats and dictators have always faced a charge of being
illegitimate rulers (salatin al-jawr or faqid
al-mashru'iyya). Inasmuch as the rulers have needed the
ulama to continue their autocratic rule, the ulama have
needed the rulers, at least in the Sunni world, to support
their religious institutions. The role of the seminaries in
the public education cannot be underestimated. Whether it
is women's rights or the rights of the non-Muslim
minorities, the ulama are involved in formulating and
disseminating longstanding attitudes that are contrary to
the democratic ideals today. Although many of us in the
academia speak about the ulama in pejorative terms,
describing them as obscurantist, fundamentalists, and so
on, as intellectual elitists we have, ironically,
facilitated their emergence as the sole spokesperson for
the Muslim umma. Moreover, our neglect of adequate
preparation in meeting the religious establishment on its
own terms, has allowed the ulama to discredit us as
"outsiders" to the tradition. So while our colleagues in
the western universities applaud us for our critical
scholarship in sociology and anthropology of Islam, the
community at large, and even the one living in the West,
continues to read Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi. They
actually shun Fazlur Rahman and the likes of him.

Last year an article on "Islamic Studies' Young Turks," by
Danny Postel appeared in The Chronicle for Higher Education
(September 13, 2002). I wrote a response to it, which could
not be published because the issue of Islamic studies was
closed. Let me share some of that response with you
tonight. In my response I asked the following question:
What's the real challenge for the Muslim `dissident'
scholars in the West, and, I shall hasten to add, in the
Muslim world?

After eight months in Iran during 2002, with intense
conversations and interactions with both scholars at the
Islamic seminaries and at the universities, it is evident
to me that without the translations and dissemination of
the `dissident' scholarship produced in the West, it is
impossible to see how the rethinking and the awaited reform
among Muslims will ever take off. Whatever self-critical
and intelligent research we, as Muslim scholars, undertake
in the American and European universities, it is going to
remain strictly academic, circulated among our colleagues,
if these interest them, without any influence over the way
our counterparts in the Islamic world think and teach. We
are not only faced with irrelevance in the Muslim world.
Our influence here in Muslim communities in the North
American situation is stifled and confined to the academia.
This is even more dangerous for our groundbreaking work,
because if it cannot find readers except among non-Muslims,
and that also among academicians who applaud and support
our work, the situation must be regarded even more critical
right in our back yard. The level of irrelevance of the new
`dissident' language that has evolved to speak about Islam
and human rights, democracy, and women's rights can be
observed in the kinds of people invited to speak in the
Muslim conventions and organizations throughout the Western
world.

The narrow-minded attitude regarding this refreshingly new
scholarship can be observed even among highly educated and
professional Muslims in this country. One would have
thought that the "enlightened" Muslims would be the first
ones to understand and appreciate the value of research
that is being conducted by this new generation of believing
Muslims. Not so, when it comes to preserving the false
sense of security generated by ignorance in the matter of
Islam. The greater need to learn about the basic civic
virtues and responsibilities cannot be overemphasized in
the context of North America. In the aftermath of September
11, we discovered to our horror the kind of antagonistic
worldview that was preached in a number of Muslim
organizations that depended for their knowledge on Islam as
taught by the imported "native" preachers from the Middle
East. With all due respect to their breadth of traditional
Islamic knowledge, they engaged in teaching their
communities ways to protect their 'pure' religion that was
threatened by the so-called Muslim academicians and the
`enemies' of Islam in universities.
It is under these circumstances that one can appreciate the
work that is being done by some dissident scholars in Iran
and Egypt. Their work is in the native languages of the
people who are searching for relevance of their religion in
the modern times. Undoubtedly, their lives are made
extremely difficult by the autocratic regimes in the
region. But, what they write, even if it be an article on
the need to challenge religious absolutist power of the
obscurantist establishment, it does the work of thousands
of books that we produce away from places where people are
thirsty to read or hear something that generates hope for
men and women, youth and children, faced with oppression
and suppression. There is much evidence to show that Muslim
`dissident' scholarship in Western languages has not
reached the people who can rethink Islamic theology, and
reinterpret Islamic juridical tradition by applying the
modern methodologies in the study of religion. Our
self-importance as reform-minded Muslim scholars in the
West is no more than an illusion about our ability to reach
out the Muslim public. This situation reminds me of the
interfaith dialogue that takes place under the auspices of
the Vatican and Muslim government agencies. It never
reaches the public who need to inform themselves about the
principles of coexistence and the need to increase better
relations with all peoples of different faith. It is too
academic in its goals and least connected with the
communities of faith who need to learn the inclusiveness of
God's mercy and compassion.

As Muslim scholars, who wish to make intellectual
contribution to the culture of tolerance and acceptance of
the Other in the Muslim world, we require not only cultural
legitimacy in order to reach out the intelligent audience
in the Middle East; but also the means to transmit our
research in the language that conveys ideas to a wider,
receptive Muslim audience. We need to move our scholarly
endeavors to bring about the necessary transformation in
Muslim political culture. Both September 11, 2001 and the
war to depose Saddam makes it imperative that we work
closely with the major agents of change in Muslim
societies: the military and the ulama. We cannot cry out
"Democracy now, democracy now," without committing our
intellectual and religious resources to make the case for
the cooperation of the ulama, and to make them our allies
in the struggle to build democratic institutions that would
dismantle any form of political or religious
authoritarianism. The experiment with reform since 19th
century has demonstrated, time and again, that the
seminarian discourse on political Islam has failed to
generate political participation of the people in Muslim
countries. The ulama in general have remained oblivious of
the necessity to include all citizens in the civil society,
regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliation. And
unless academically trained Muslim scholars come forward to
lead the young educated men and women through intelligent
exposition of Islam and their personal commitment to it, it
will be difficult, if not impossible, to share the platform
of change with the ulama in the foreseeable future. We
simply cannot afford to dismiss them outright and expect
average Muslim to believe in what we are saying. Remember
the secret of the Prophet's political society: consultation
(shura) and consensus building (ijma`) even with those who
disagree with us.

I believe that there are a number of scholars in the U.S.
whose scholarship could foster better interfaith and
inter-communal relations to further a religiously
pluralistic and democratic society. If this new Islamic
rethinking that is taking place in our midst here can find
proper platform for its dissemination, then it could lead
to a badly needed reform in the Muslim communities to see
themselves as others see them. I am under no illusion that
such an acceptance of the `dissident' scholarship in the
North American Muslim communities is distant. The influence
of narrow-minded and stultified Islamic tradition funded by
the petrodollars for over a quarter century will take much
longer to dismantle. In the meantime, as Muslim scholars,
we need to think of ways to reach out the community that
needs to reform the way it conceptualizes the world of
disbelief and acts upon the intolerance and bigotry that is
preached and taught in the religious institutions in
America and Europe. This is the challenge that confronts
those of us in the West and invites us to think seriously.
Intolerance and bigotry are there in the field, and, we can
no longer afford to remain indifferent in the sheltered
arena of the academia.

The time has come for the CSID to enter the serious
business of building the bridge between Muslim academicians
and the Ulama. It is the cooperation of these two groups
that will make it possible for democracy in its most
limited sense, that is, the accountability of the public
officials and the scrutiny of their performance by the
public, to take roots. This internal dialogue is a
precondition to disseminate democratic pluralistic ideology
in the Muslim world. In a recent conference organized by
"Women Waging Peace" I learnt from a number of Muslim women
representatives from Iraq and the U.S., who are actively
striving to get women included in the governance of the
post-war Iraq. Their focus is on restoring the God-given
dignity of a Muslim woman as a human person by actually
forging pragmatic alliances with some of the ulama who, for
some moral or religious reasons, are supportive of the
efforts of Muslim women activists. According to these
women, some of whom have directed and manged humanitarian
aid all over the world, their strategy to secure the
endorsement of the ulama has actually benefited the women's
cause in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, and now Iraq.

So why democracy and why now? Let me conclude my remarks by
relating pertinent observations made by some leading and
broadly educated ulama: Today working for the good of all
people requires to keep in mind that such a goal is
impossible to achieve without first building an alliance
between forces of modernity and tradition. Whether in
Muslim society or in general, these forces are identified
with two major institutions for their preservation:
universities and seminaries. In the Muslim world, the
institutional function attributed to the church in the West
is actually performed by the Muslim seminary. Seminaries -
the madarasa or hawza illmiyya - represent what Islam
teaches about itself as interpreted by the ulama.
Universities represent what the moderns teach about any and
all subjects that human beings want or need to learn.
Hence, both universities and seminaries as the repositories
of human knowledge become the centers of power, in constant
competition with each other and the state, to control the
people's minds so as to make them agree with what they
uphold to be of epistemic value. And although there is a
difference in their approach to knowledge, they build upon
one another, to provide solutions to the pressing problems
of social ethics for the people today. As a result, they
cannot afford to work in isolation. They need to build
bridges of understanding so that they can contribute to the
well being of the entire society. The Muslim world is still
searching for ways to make Islamic studies an academic
discipline that can be studied critically and without
confining it to end-oriented research in modern
universities. The dialogue has already occurred. But it has
not reached the level of dia-action. This dia-action is a
prelude to the process of democratization in Muslim
societies. The success of CSID, as I see it, is intimately
tied to forging the working relationship between the two
centers of influence and power in the Muslim world. The key
is to work towards an inclusive epistemology, without any
claim to absolutism about the past heritage. Will it
happen? That depends on all of us, men and women, Muslim
and non-Muslim, working together to make the ideal attain
reality.

Thank you very much!
 © Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy, 2003.  All
rights reserved.
1050 Connecticutt Avenue, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036
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