Abdolkarim Soroush Quotes
Islam and democracy are not only compatible. Their association is inevitable. In a Muslim society, one without the other is not perfect.
Abdul Karim Soroush, 1945-, Iranian Philosopher, Quoted in Robin Wright, Sacred Rage, 1985
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation of a very popular Muslim cleric illustrates the wide range of political views of Islamic leaders and authorities. Whereas most shun democracy as placing public opinion over the word of God, there are many like al-Qaradawi who have a modernist interpretation of 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.
Over 1000 people had registered to be candidates in the Iranian national election. However, under the Iranian Islamic Constitution all candidates have to be approved by the Guardian Council of Ayatollahs who are appointed by the Supreme Leader, also appointed. The Guardian Council found that all candidates but 6 were not worthy enough Muslims to be allowed to run for public office. 2 of the over 1000 rejected candidates were very prominent Iranians. The Supreme Leader made this statement which seems very reasonable and democratic until his order to the Guardian Council is considered. He ordered them to reconsider 2 or the 1000 rejected candidates.
Ironically, without the word “wicked” most people would regard the first sentence as a good description of elements of a modern democracy. It illustrates that for the Islamic fundamentalist democracy substitutes the rule of man for the rule of God, freedom of speech allows heresy and blasphemy to to uttered and communicated, and religion which is supposed to inform and direct politics. So what is good for the lover of democracy is the very thing that is bad for Islam. This is not a uniquely Islamic viewpoint. It has been and is held by fundamentalist Christians and Jews as well who would return to Biblical law punishing blasphemy and heresy with death and have religion drive all politics.
This statement was made 20 years before the Arab Spring of 2011.
This illustrates the major problem of establishing democracy in an Islamic nation. If the mainstream of Islamic people accept democracy as in Turkey, there can be a vibrant democracy. But if the mainstream sees all other religions as heresy and insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran, then democracy is impossible as in Saudi Arabia.
See 358821 for another expression of this idea.
This is a very important quotation. Abraham Lincoln obtained a printed copy of Parker’s sermon and underlined this quotation on his copy. Later when he was President he used a slight variation of Parker’s last phrase in the last line of his famous Gettysburg Address.
Abdolkarim Soroush, is an Iranian Islamic thinker, reformer, Rumi scholar, public intellectual, and a former professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran and Imam Khomeini International University. He is arguably the most influential figure in the religious intellectual movement of Iran. Soroush is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. He was also affiliated with other prestigious institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, the Leiden-based International Institute as a visiting professor for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. He was named by TIME as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2005, and by Prospect magazine as one of the most influential intellectuals in the world in 2008. Soroush's ideas, founded on Relativism, prompted both supporters and critics to compare his role in reforming Islam to that of Martin Luther in reforming Christianity.
