The Axiological and Praxeological Relationship Between Political Islam and Liberal Democracy

Introduction

Liberal (Western) democracy is often treated in Islamic political discourse as a latent incarnation of neo-colonialism which implies the degradation of Islamic values ​​and social norms of behavior, the exploitation of natural and human resources, and the devastation of political development on its social outlines. Simplified, the triviality of liberal democracy for the Islamic campus implies imposing a model of democracy that cannot be fully compatible with the original Muslim notion of society and government.

The author Bejtula Demiri acknowledged that the values ​​of Islamic religion in Muslim societies, whether integral or non-integral, are a dominant value system that cannot fully, at once, and automatically incorporate the values ​​of Western liberalism. This statement also applies to the possible acceptance of liberal democracy (as a Western concept of democracy) in certain Muslim societies and states (Demiri 2009, p. 64). Political Islam, in turn, builds its positions towards liberal democracy through the prism of the established values ​​of modern liberalism that contain moral decadence through Islamic discourse, as well as the rapid attempts to sever separation of Islamic principles from the political and social spectrum and the ‘privatization’ of religion according to French reasoning.

This chapter will discuss the relationship between political Islam and liberal democracy on the basic principles such as the rule of law, representative government, separation of powers, as well as secularism, which are the defining features of this model of democracy. This discourse will not be engaged in social engineering or epistemological recombination through the prism of two elements: 1) the attempts to redesign liberal democracy, by ignoring secularism as its value dimension and component, and 2) the status of religions in contemporary liberal democratic states. The primary goal is to determine the relation of political Islam through an axiological and praxeological perspective with the liberal model of democracy, which often tries to be imputed in some Muslim countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, etc. In this regard, this chapter should conclude few elementary questions that concern that dimension. First, whether liberalism and democracy have always been complementary, or does the historical narrative indicate a different constellation. So what does liberal democracy mean today and what are its value postulates that would serve as a working framework for this chapter? Second, are there common outlines of political Islam and liberal democracy concerning the concept of the rule of law, and what is the liberal vis-à-vis Islamic perspective of that category? Are there any divergent positions in that area? Third, what constitutes the Islamic political discourse on representative government and separation of power? Is there any way in which the Islamic concept of shura (consultation) with the ideas of representative government is manifested and is there any opposition? Fourth, why is there an antagonism of political Islam to secular postulates, and what constitutes the political-ideological paradigm of such a relationship?