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ATTEMPTS to trace causal links between Islam/Muslim societies and Democracy – a popular concern these days – are more than a little troubling. For even as it is legitimate to be concerned about the ostensible growth of fundamentalism and sectarianism in Muslim communities or the sharp increase in the number of fanatical and ‘terrorist’ groups claiming allegiance to Islam, the very question is marked by an error of specification. No one, for instance, interrogates the relationship between Christianity with absence of democracy despite the recent history of fascism in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain and the presence of authoritarian regimes in Christian dominant societies.

Is this because global discourse, more so after 9/11, is far too obsessed with the democracy deficit in the Arab region, disregarding the fact that over three quarters of the world’s Muslims live in non-Arab lands? Only once we begin to examine the specific trajectory of non-Arab Muslim societies – some formally Islamic theocratic states, others with secular constitutions which seek to confine matters of faith to the private realm – can we explore the diversities of both ‘lived Islam’ and ‘experienced democracy’.

Take Turkey. For close to eight decades, Turkey, a Muslim majority country, for long the heartland of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Caliphate, has experimented with aggressive secularism. The Kemalist tendency did enforce the separation of religion from the affairs of the state with help of the army, seen as a modernising force. And, it is also undeniable that the process was brutal, not only for the Muslim establishment but even more so for the Armenian Christian community which was more or less wiped out from the country. Yet today, despite being governed by seemingly Islamist parties, an overwhelming majority of Turkish citizens approve of policies relegating Islam into the private sphere, even forbidding the intrusion of Muslim education in schools.

True, this political process has not gone uncontested and there exist groups/parties in Turkey which would like a greater role for the Shariah. Yet, even they are essentially battling for greater freedom of religious practice, not demanding greater restrictions on women or constricting rights of non-Muslim minorities. Crucially, all agree on open democratic politics as the means through which differing social imaginations seek a share in political power, exposing the lie of Muslim societies/Islam as inherently inhospitable to democracy.

Malaysia and Indonesia too, despite majority Muslim populations and powerful Islamic parties, have so far successfully resisted becoming Muslim theocratic states. True, there is some support in some regions for being governed by the Shariah, and smaller religious minorities do face a constrained environment. Indonesia, in particular, has witnessed a substantial growth in the influence of Muslim parties, each with a major stake in education. Yet, and this is important, despite widespread opposition to western (read the US) policies and role in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no substantial support for recasting these societies in the image of a Wahabi Islam.

Examples can be added. What needs to be stressed is that there is no one homogenous and singular ‘lived’ Islam. The Muslim faithful do look to the Arab peninsula as the holy land, and making the Haj at least once is a crucial desirable for all believing Muslims. Also that the study of the Koran in Arabic is privileged over versions in other languages. More significantly, Saudi oil money, post 1971, has facilitated the growth of particular versions/readings of Islam, changed the architecture of local mosques and even affected sartorial tastes. Yet globally, diversity in Islam remains the norm rather than the exception. And efforts to construct a global Muslim ummah have enjoyed little success.

To meaningfully debate the experience of democracy in Muslim societies demands greater engagement with the histories and political economies of specific countries – their internal and external relations and environment. Equally, to recognize that each of these societies is grappling with the difficult questions of sources of legitimacy and validation, not always choosing a religious text or interpretation for organizing social and political life. Political Islam, as Mahmood Mamdani (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Pantheon, 2004) so presciently reminds us, is more a result of a modern encounter with western power and that the terrorist movement at the centre of Islamic polities emerged out of the US embrace of proxy war against communism.

This might help us better appreciate that while Islam is important for each of these societies, it is by no means the principal organising principle. Otherwise, it is likely that analysts will fall prey to a simplistic rendering of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, operating on a binary of good vs. bad Islam and Muslim.

Harsh Sethi