Quran and Democracy

A discussion by Muhammed Asadi.

The framework under which decisions are to be made would be the Quran (see 6:114 etc), and specifically its "mohkam" (or standard setting) statements (see Quran 3:7). These standard setting statements are called the "mother of the book" (Ummul Kitaab) in the Quran (Quran 3:7). Based upon these verses not only are our new laws going to be interpreted but also the other verses of the Quran itself, "the motashabey" (the allegorical or consimilar). The "mohkam" verses number a lot less than the entire Quran, therefore the amount of freedom that the Quran grants us is much greater than any that is granted by a bureaucratized society, where laws govern every aspect of life. What traditionalists have done is to canonize their own (extra Quranic) laws as a bureaucratized form of "Islam", this is exactly what the Quran warns against (Quran 42:21), because this not only stifles reason but prevents freedom in that it reduces the "consultation" part of governance and does not take into consideration the historical era and the social structure that exists in that era.

Sounds like John Dewey's concern about the direction of American democracy....