Bernard Lewis Quotes
I think the important point which I've been trying to get across is that Islam, from the very beginning, is strongly, clearly opposed to autocratic dictatorial government. The idea which we so often hear expressed in the Western world, that's how they are, that's how they will always be and they can't do anything else.
Lewis, Bernard. Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian. Viking, 2012.
Perhaps this quotation gives the best insight to the major difference between an Islamic perspective of law and the Western. The latter places the rights of the individual on a par with or even superior to that of the society as a whole. The former is more concerned with the effect and result on society as a whole than concern with the individual rights of single individuals.
Theological & Legal Expert. The Sunnah, like the Koran, has statements of the Prophet, Mohammad. A fatwa is a religious legal ruling. This particular Fatwa shows the great difference between the Islamic State and a Republic or Democracy. In the latter forms, any religious practices must be consistent with the Constitution. Even though blasphemy might be prohibited by a religion, the United States Constitution for example protects anyone’s right to be blasphemous. In the Islamic system any constitution or law is subservient to and must be consistent with, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. In that sense, unless the Muslim populated nation is secular like Turkey, then the governments are partial or total theocracies.
Here Khomeini takes the classic Islamic view of the Koran that leaders should be obeyed unless they do not follow Islam. To the leaders of Islamic nations, this means that even if the state is not a theocracy, the Muslim clergy has the final say as to whether a ruler may justly remain in power since they are the ones who determine if a ruler is properly following Islam.
They are so different that most people in the West think of what Khamenei describes as “religious democracy” as not even close to democracy—almost the antithesis of democracy, and Islamic fundamentalists perceive Western democracy as sinful and evil.
Bernard Lewis, FBA was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise was in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.
