Abstract

Discourse on the nature and character of Islamic polity has generated a good amount of scholarly attention and has become one of the most contested debates both with Muslim and Western scholarship. The political linchpins of western liberal democracy including secularism, sovereignty and justice has often been criticized by Islamic scholars as infallible ideas; subject to human errors. Although the Muslim genealogy of critique of western democracy is as old as the concept of Western democracy itself, the present paper is an attempt to investigate political Islam and Western democracy in the light of Allama Iqbal, whose philosophical treatment, poetical style, and political interpretation of Islam mixed with little mysticism, has generated a critical debate on the character of political Islam and Western democracy. This political character of Islam, which has itself been subject to several contested interpretations, contrasts with Western version of democracy in several ways. Iqbal, as such vehemently criticized Western democracy by seeing the nature of advancement of modern civilization tested in the light of European knowledge and he was convinced that in the future world it was only the Islamic polity capable of absorbing all the cultures and societies of the world with due regard to local traditions and value systems. Moreover, to Iqbal the purpose of Islam is directed to build a highly civilized society wherein liberty of individual is not only nourished but maintained, preserved and internalized. For realization of this aim, Iqbal believed, state plays pivotal role. But at the same, he was neither satisfied with the pattern of European states nor he was glad with the totalitarian regimen states; controlling human societies of other parts of the globe. It is against this backdrop; present paper aims to visualise the extent of conflict and compatibility between Islamic polity and Western democracy in Iqbal’s political discourse. The paper further explores the role of Allama Iqbal in formulating theocratic system on the basis of Quran. Also, it attempts to analyse how Iqbal considered Quran not only as a “legal code”, but also the “primary source” of Islamic Law whose purpose is “to awaken in man the Higher consciousness” of his relation “with God and the Universe”. As the states help in realization of human ideals “the Qur’an considers it necessary to unite religion and state, ethics and politics in a single revelation much in the same way as Plato does in his Republic”.

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