Is authentic religion incompatible with democracy?

Here you show your true face, Paul. Someone who would rather burn books than promote open thought. Please show us which societies based on Islamic Law are flourishing today. Muslims around the world are more than happy to live in the 'degenerate' West.

Democracy is the biggest "idol" of this era !!!!

The claim that "God is sovereign" is nonsensical, because God is interpreted. It is just people interpreting.

Yes, 25 years ago when came people were chanting democracy highnesses it's freedom, it's respect for human kind and equality. Now everything changed.

I couldn't agree more with you Paul. The dictatorship of atheistic Liberal democracy is taking society to a nihilistic hell here on earth

Paul please make a video on islamic democracy!
For example:
Islamic republic of iran
Islamic republic of Pakistan etc has a democracy moulded with islamic perspective within islamic laws and constitution which is under islamic rules of governance is okayy???

I agree 100%

Could not disagree more. Democracy is a bliss and blessing
In fact it gives us progress in this world and salvation in the other.
We see this in history, so many men of God had been persecuted for going against political authority in the past, only to be respected later. Think of Abu Hanifa. In a secular government, development of religious thought is also free from government intervention.
Also, your test is more valid and more true in this world of secular democracy.
Take your example of homosexuality, if you have such desires and inclinations, the fact that you did not materialize any such fantasy in a strictly sharia society is no achievement. You are not given the chance or environment. But in the modern society where it is not discouraged at all, but if you kept such desires under control, it is a much stronger achievement of your dedication to limits set by God. Thus, those who had homosexual interest or desires or attractions and who controlled it, or even those who tried it a few times and then made an honest tevbe and repentance and then kept that repentance are surely much more genuine in their faith and fear of the limits of God than those the society extinguished their desires, or those who would have tried a homosexual experience had they not feared death through stoning.
Secular democracy means you obey and fear the limits of God, sharia means you fear rajm, and losing your life, and losing in torture.

Monarchy will make a comeback after the collapse of democracy:)

I should also say that there has never been a true democratic form of government anywhere in the world. The USA was not founded as a democracy; it is a republic. Moreover, Chomsky would agree that it was founded as a polyarachy. Do the people really rule in the USA? Or in the UK? Or anywhere else for that matter? I would suggest not. The people get to vote every few years for candidates that almost no one really likes and when those candidates win they rarely keep their promises and they seem more interested in representing the interests of corporations and lobbyists.

Democracy doesn't have to involve the regulation of what is halal and haram. In so far as Islam allows for customary practices that do not conflict with the norms of Shari'ah the "rule of the people" could be permitted to that extent. Moreover: who gets to interpret God's law in an Islamic society? Both Abdal Hakim Murad and Hamza Yusuf have said many times God's law always requires an interpreter and that interpreter can only approximate God's intentions within a given society.

Amazing, superb explanation.

Did you go through the concept of theo-democracy, interestingly its mentioned in wikipedia "Islamic Democracy"
something that is "propose by Hazret Moulana Abul-Ala Moududi" as per the page.
the article says (I am summarizing) Moulana Moududi considers western idea of democracy and secularism is totally incompatible with Islam and should be discarded.
Yet like other scholars He (Moulana Moududi) discussed that there is concept of Shura (something like parlimentarian system) where leader/governor should consult to public demands in terms of daily aspects and civil regulations and expert opinions (of those who understand Islam) and scholarly opinions must also be taken into consideration before implementation, but that is only valid within Islamic paradigm and should not undermine any of Islamic principles & values. The page refers this as kind of democracy (not in absolute sense). I think rather its actually shariah itself and cannot be considered as democracy.

As per the article, the similar view was held by The famous eastern poet Allamah-Iqbal..

As I remember his lines -

• Regardless of whether it is dictatorship/autocracy or demoracy.
• The system that has no Deen (divine paradigm/religion) eventually remains as tyranny of gengis khan.

I think article referring to these lines to present his view as i.e., (I am summarizing)
Iqbal viewed democracy as valid, if it is within the bound of Shariah/Islamic paradigm (not in the western sense).

As far as I know him through his poetry, Iqbal rejected the western ideology, he showed greatest resistence against western influence into the Islamic civilazation in middle east (through his peotry).

Regarding wiki: I think it is simply wordplay created in the wikipedia to make it seems like Islam supports democracy, in reality those credible scholars, clearly distinguished and negated the western ideology.

Haneef Oliver has a nice small book on this subject:
Sacred Freedom (Western Liberalist Ideologies in the light of Islam)

100% agree 🇵🇰❤️

Observing people become puppets of certain narratives on both sides of any political spectrum, I agree with your argument. Giving power to the people to decide is detrimental when the people do not have proper knowledge or make any effort to attain that knowledge. What is the value of a vote when it is done in confusion and with nothing but emotion?

Meeting a Guantanamo Bay survivor showed me the sickening hypocrisy of Bush, Blair and the war on terror

Twenty years after lethal attacks turned aircraft into weapons and sparked the so-called war on terror, the US has slunk out of Afghanistan and will end combat missions in Iraq. Those proclaimed plans to remake the world in its image, turning the planet into a democratic nirvana while ensuring safe supplies of oil, have been dashed against hard reality. Billions of dollars have been spent, millions of lives wrecked, many thousands of people killed. Yet those foolish misadventures have left the Taliban resurgent in Afghanistan, Iran strengthened in the Middle East, jihadism rampant in many more countries and the West weakened against threats from dictators in Beijing and Moscow.


In his speech to Congress following the 9/11 attacks, President George W Bush was joined by Tony Blair when he talked about defeating “every terrorist group of global reach”. Then he asked a rhetorical question: “Why do they hate us?” His answer was simple: the West’s enemies despised democracy and freedom. “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war and we know that God is not neutral between them. Fellow citizens, we’ll meet violence with justice, assured of the rightness of our cause and confident of the victories to come.”

The gains of decades could be wiped out as Taliban seizes its chance in Afghanistan

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How naive such words seem now after two decades of carnage, chaos and conflict, culminating in the world’s most powerful nation being repelled by ragtag insurgents. Last week I met a man who symbolises the sickening hypocrisy of politicians such as Blair and Bush, spewing out hollow words about freedom and democracy while unleashing an onslaught of state-sanctioned terror. His name is Mohamedou Ould Slahi and – in the name of that “patient justice” – he spent 14 years without charge in Guantanamo Bay camp after secret rendition through Jordan and Afghanistan. You may have seen his story in a searing and superb film called The Mauritanian, or perhaps read it in Guantanamo Diary, his first-hand account.

Mohamedou was buzzing around a small party in north London hosted by Kevin Macdonald, the film’s director. He was affable, charming and smiling, although dark rings around his eyes hinted at the inner turmoil of a man plagued by nightmares about his past horrors. We spoke again a couple of days later. This was his first visit to a Western nation since incarceration and he admitted he was terrified on landing, fearing he might be victim of a dastardly trick to send him back into hell. “I almost didn’t dare to come,” he said. “After two weeks, I am beginning to relax.”

This is a man who, in the name of our democracy, suffered unimaginable cruelty including kidnap, torture and the theft of 14 years of his life.


This is a man who, in the name of our democracy, suffered unimaginable cruelty including kidnap, torture and the theft of 14 years of his life. Here is a snapshot of how those people preaching freedom treated him: at one point in Guantanamo he was head-butted, covered in icy water, put in a freezing cell, blasted with heavy metal music, dazzled with strobe lights, starved and then forced to drink water until sick. The walls of his cells were plastered with images of genitalia, male guards beat him so badly they broke several ribs, women played weird sexual games to humiliate him. One memo suggested dressing him in a burqa and forcing him to bark like a dog. They even threatened to gang-rape his mother in Mauritania.

This torture was to extract confession of ties that did not exist to the 9/11 atrocities. He fought briefly with al-Qaeda and the Mujahedin as a young man in the Afghan conflict almost a decade before 9/11 – on the same side as American interests against a Communist government. Yet US intelligence services – those agencies that pushed a false notion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to justify a disastrous invasion – saw him as a top al-Qaeda operative. Yet Mohamedou – the son of a camel herder who won a scholarship to Germany and speaks four languages fluently – would debate with his guards and seems to have remarkable capacity for forgiveness. He told me he nearly lost his mind in the Jordanian secret prison and Guantanamo, struggles with depression and a sense of hopelessness, yet sees no point in bitterness or revenge.

But while President Joe Biden may be withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, that wretched camp in Cuba soiling the concept of justice remains operational. Almost 800 people have been sent there and 39 remain, most held for years without being charged, tried or convicted. One man has been force-fed daily for eight years after going on hunger strike in protest at his imprisonment. Barack Obama promised to shut Guantanamo but failed, although drastically reducing the number of detainees. In the last year of his administration Mohamedou was finally freed – six years after a federal judge first ordered his release.

Mohamedou told me a story of one man beaten to death inside Bagram, the US base in Afghanistan – a victim of mistaken identity who failed to confess to crimes about which he knew nothing. That routine use of torture, those secretive renditions of shackled suspects and the events hidden inside Guantanamo were an outrage. Yet as that former prisoner rightly said, there are many more similar dark hellholes around the world filled with people “suffering in compete silence and unknown to others”. So this is why he talks about his own trauma and relives the terrible events.

Backed by Britain under Tony Blair, his nation trashed the cause of democracy, tarnished the concept of Western justice and devastated global support for our claimed values.

President Bush, in that eloquent address nine days after 9/11, said that “freedom and fear are at war” as he pledged “an age of liberty across the world”, promising “no one should be singled out for unfair treatment”. Instead, backed by Britain under Tony Blair, his nation trashed the cause of democracy, tarnished the concept of Western justice and devastated global support for our claimed values.

The US may be ending its longest war, but the battle to win hearts and minds has a very long way to go. Why do they hate us, asked Bush? Look at Guantanamo for the answer.

I don't understand much of the implementation of the democratic system in and its political philosophy but I know it's inherently flawed. Incompetent people including ex criminals can offer themselves to be a leader. Those who vote for him in election are not necessarily understand the best interest for state governance and administrative.

On the other hand, in Islamic leadership or caliphate from my understanding, leaders are assigned by a council of knowledgeable people in a meeting (musyawarah) to pick their leader through meritocracy as in the case of Khulafa al-Rasyidin. These caliphate aren't necessarily offer themselves to be a leader, but the council musyawarah appoint him nevertheless through strictly selective process based on superiority in personal merit. Islamic caliphate also assigned by the previous leaders as seen in the selection of Abu Abdullah Muhammad of Abbasid, Marwan of Umayyad etc.

The whole concepts are still blurry in my understanding but judging from the difference between democracy and Islamic meritocracy, I strongly believe both are incompatible with each other.

Islam is total slavery where you have JUST MERCIFUL LORD and His happy slaves who would die for the sake of their Lord

Democracy is one of the satan's greatest ideas to turn people far away from true religion

Democracy, based on secular laws and competing parties, is bought with money. A one-party system is much better, look at China, and the best is when that one party is the party of Allah.

islam is the only authentic religion. moses and jesus delivered legislations or sharias in arabic, as well as books, suitable for their people's circumstances. but the religion is fixed.

No hate, but how would we choose our leaders in a system with no democracy? Would there be a council of people who would decide, like the caliphates? Who would choose that council? How can we be sure that our leaders wouldn’t be corrupt?

Islam is certainly not compatible with "secular" democracy, but it is certainly compatible with democratic theocracy. Indeed, the rule of the Rashedin Caliphate in Madina was a "form" of democratic theocracy and, certainly, a variation of this can be found for any time and place including ours. What I object to is the claim by Muslim extremists that autocracy having the designation of an Islamic emirate is the only option available for the believers.

No doubt the word of Allah swa is absolute and Supreme. Democracy cannot in principle be compatible with democracy in the nation state .

If Democracy is the perfect solutions of human beings than ' Allah ( God) shouldn't send his Devine Prophets to guide how to live on this earth.
whatever's system
mankind's developed to follow always scanned with Devine words of Allah if no harm so accepted it otherwise throw it on the wall.

Which version of divine law should replace democracy?

Based, democracy is cringe

I experience this myself I once had a discussion with a person whit who 100 people around us we debated not religion related he told me it's not so and everyone was with him but I stood by my statement I made so when I show him proof only one person came forward to say I knew you told the truth but because everyone else was with the other guy he tends to stay quiet all of the others had eggs on their faces just shows you majority isn't always right.

Brilliant

History is a witness to the horrors of social and economic injustice with man-made laws. May Allah guide humanity to the eternal pleasure of Jannah and protect us from eternal pain in Jahannam.

Paul you have come to the right conclusion, as per my understanding of islam as well. I believe that humans are inherently biased and divergent, so they are incapable of following a law that they dont like especially coming from another human. And as we all know most of the things that are bad feel good and those that are good feel bad. So naturally any good law is bound to attract opposition. The only way a we can follow such law would require that law to be from the creator Himself. This way no ones pride would get hurt in obeying it and obligation would be implicit.

It Makes sense now,why they fear a large demographic of British Muslims especially white British Muslims.Because it affects there elections

BTW they did a pole amongst British Muslims and I'm proud to say, 0% believe homosexual is morally ok.

Its not democracy thats the problem. Its how you interprete democracy is the issue here. Same goes with the Holy Scriptures n the Holy Quran.
In Islam theres no separation of State n Beliefs( Religion ). Herein lies the problem of western democracy. Theres no such thing as absolute freedom nor absolute power. In Islam Power are only given to those who knows how to wield it for the good of all as guided by the Quran n Hadith. Power does not pass from father to sons. Go back to the essence of democracy which are the freedom to choose n the freedom to criticise n admonish n you will have the CALIPHA !!! A Calipha is not a Sultan or King who practically owns the whole kingdom. A Calipha is a representative of Allah on earth to Govern according to the dictation of Allah n HIS messenger the Prophet (saw) . Yes there are numerous problems with Western Democracy. However the doors of IJTIHAD should not be closed on DEMOCRACY . The alternatives ie ; Monarchy, Totalitarian n Communism are even more EVIL n Destructive to mankind .

Absolutely, a quite controversial topic you have chosen!

However, during the life of Mohammed while he was ruling with the book of Allah, he also got consultation about matters. So much so that Sahabah, when doubted his decisions about something, would openly ask if it was a revelation or his own decision.
Upon learning that it was Mohammed's own, they would disagree and give him their own decisions.
However, after the second caliph, ie Omar, Sharia also was also subjected to man's desires.
Muslims, putting aside their doctrines and dogmatic ideas, should really look into the events during the third caliph, how he ruled, how he got killed and how fourth caliph (might have ) had a say in it. How he lost Caliphate to the most cunning man, Muawiyah, who redefinined the rules of Sharia using ahadith.

Masha Allah Paul.. the verse u read from An'am, really struck me few months back when I read. I had not read any interpretation of that worse with the political systems of the world, but I could connect it. And when u said this- I'm beyond awe of the Truth and mercy of my lord in conveying everything, had only Muslims accepted this truth about Democracy!. In sha Allah, Allah has his plans and will replace this falsehood system.

I think you misunderstand what democracy is for. The primary advantage of democracy is to hold the government accountable, while at the same time ensuring regime change without violence. Almost every other system means that someone is likely to die when those in charge stop being in charge.

I was taught that the best form of government is benevolent dictatorship. This makes sense. You have decisiveness and (one hopes) wise governance and justice. But dictators tend not to be benevolent. In fact you're lucky if you get one that is. Then there's the problem of what happens when the dictator dies. There's no system of succession that we've find that ensures you get one benevolent dictator after another. You might get 10-15 years where everything is ok, followed by 2-3 years of hell. Or longer.

No thanks.

To quite Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst possible form of government, apart from all the others we've tried.

Trying to pin debauchery and social degradation on democracy is ignorant. All societies embrace these things at some point, whether the people in charge encourage it or not. The mistake governments make in social policy is to poke their noses in and say what is ok and what is not. It is not for the government to dictate beliefs and morals. When they do, it invariably goes horribly wrong.

Its all about accountability. If the individual citizen feels accountable for what they do, they'll tend to behave themselves. The same applies to rulers and politicians. But what to do with the ruler who believes God allows him free reign, or the atheist who believes the means justifies the ends? You're just as likely to get a Stalin or a Vlad the Impaler or an Aurangzeb.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is the reason why the West in particular turned its back on despotism and theocracy. There was too much blood spilled. Then we ended up with atheistic despotism under the guise of Communism and it was even worse.

People are much less likely to die as a result of political violence under democracy. Properly functioning democracies are much less likely to engage in wars, and certainly not wars of conquest.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "authentic" religion. Christianity works quite well under democracy, autocracy, theocracy (even antagonistic theocracy) or whatever. We subvert whatever system is in power while paying the system its due. Judaism likewise. Christianity is, if anything, more effective and transformational when the state isn't keen on us. It's only certain branches of Islam which have this problem with democracy as a system. The pattern of Muhammad was to act as prophet and final arbiter. I don't suppose the underlying political structure made that much difference, so the prevailing political systems of the time sufficed. So I'm not at all surprised - in fact perhaps quite encouraged - when Islamic countries start to embrace democratic ideas of their own free will. Imposed democracy doesn't work. You can see that in Russia. The people have to want it. But once you do have it you're much better off as a society.

Or do you believe that Islam is the only "authentic" religion, and your own understanding of it is the only one which makes it "authentic"?

Islam is not just a religion, it's a system of life (Deen)

Paul, I have yet to understand what democracy really is. It seems to be ever-changing. It really just seems to be whatever the Western man decides it to be, based on his interests and desires of the day. Could you shed some light on this?

This was an eye opener. Thank you

Democracy can work if you accept the sovereignity of God. People can vote on many things that aren't in the ambit of Divine Law. Like they can drive on the left side of the road or the right side. Have Monday as part of the weekend or food outlets run 24/7.

Odds are that all those people used hated homosexuals ultimately were following some despot that personally hated homosexuals and had his pet priests say that God agreed with him. Perhaps Democracy isn't unstable, it would always oppose homophobia because that the conclusion the majority of minds will come to is there is no reason to care about it. Positions established by hateful despots over the people being overturned by democracy as people gradually cease to regard the 'traditions' that were earlier established by despotic decree is not evidence that democracy is unstable on such matters.

Man I love this channel, lost sleep just binging lol

You converted me :)

It was never Controversial to me though ! It's been the Orthodox (Wahhabi, Salafi, Shariyati) point of view for along time.

But limited democracy to govern worldly matters is what unfortunately necessary. It's a matter of Ijtihad.

Masha'Allah. Keep posting. May Allah bless you.

Paul has made a wonderful point here. In democracy everything is good and everything is bad but under different time frames. It means nothing is holy or evil, and that evil becomes sacred and the sacred becomes evil. But Divine (Allah) has made it clear and unambiguous what is good and halal and what is bad, evil and haram under any circumstances. Allah, The Most High Says that He created man in weakness (Quran 4:28); that man’s soul is always inclined to evil (Quran 12:53); and the influence of satan is very strong on man and that satan commands man to immortality and bestiality (Quran 2:169, 268 ) etc., So by nature man tends to behave inconsistently and at times unjustly and therefore Allah by His Divine Wisdom has revealed through His Messenger and the Quran certain commandments for the mankind to follow and to preserve the sublimity and essence of life on the planet and serve its purpose of creation. Those who advocate democracy have no idea of the dangers and perils it poses to the existence of mankind. After all satan wants to establish his rule on the earth and some men work towards that end. But they do not know that Allah is Qahhar, (The irresistible One).