Dear FOTH Members, Friends and Participants, 

This is in response to the post # 38 and it has been written under no compulsion. Henceforth, the writer of post # nn will be designated by writer nn. 

First, I would like to refresh the memory of this writer38 by citing his own statements: 

“The topic statement is a question regarding the absence of democratic system in the Muslim countries.”                                                                            (1)  

and 

“the discussion topic is not (for example); What needs to be done to establish democracy in the Muslim countries or, How can Quran be applied to establish an equitable governance in Muslim countries”.                                        (2) 

The above two statements are from the post # 35 where the writer34 has been taken to task because he was going out of the track in the opinion of writer35.  

The intellectual honesty requires that a writer sticks to the rules that he proposes to others. 

For the present debate the question is: 

Why has democracy not taken root in most Muslim countries?            (3) 

 and the question is neither, 

“regarding the absence of democratic system in Muslim countries” ,       (4) 

nor: 

Why has democracy taken root in some Muslim countries?                    (5) 

In stetements (3), (4) and (5), we are not talking of the same group of countries. in (5) we note the presence, while in (3) and (4) we lament the absence of

democracy. 

In answer to question (3), I have made the following statement: 

The reason that democracy has not taken root in most Muslim countries is Islam.                                                                                                              (6)

The rational process, based on solid arguments, of obtaining the above statement has been laid down in the post #36.  The above statement does not deny the presence of some other factors. It had been already admitted that : “We can find many factors among these Muslim countries which may explain the absence of democracy in some of them but not in all of them.” To refute my above statement (6) one must show that there are some other factors which are common to the group of Muslim countries where the democracy is lacking. I will be grateful and happy to learn something new. 

As for the remark concerning Turkey, Mali, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia, the writer38 has not clearly indicated the  purpose and the intention in writing his statement. One way to look at it is, that he is simply naming some Muslim states where democracy has been established. This information we already have and the existence of democracy in some Muslim states is implicitly accepted  in (3) and (6) where we are talking of “most Muslim countries” and not “all Muslim countries”. 

Another possibility is that the writer38 wants to prove that in these countries the democracy exists in spite of the presence of Islam. We have nothing against Islam as a religion and in any democratic country people are free to practice any religion they wish. We are against the presence of Islam (or any other religion) in the government and state affair. The writer38 can only refute this point of view if he proves that in these Muslim states the state affair is run under the guidance of the Islam and Shariat laws. 

The writer38 has failed to refute any of the points which lead to the statement (6), hence the statement stands as it is. 

The post # 38 is a two-and-a-half page comment. The major part of it is based on Blind Faith,  Religious Passion and Self-citations which can not be answered with rational arguments. 

My best regards to you all.

Muhammad Ahsan Khan

Strasbourg, France.

ahsan@noos.fr