Liberalism without Secularism?: Rachid Ghannouchi and the Theory and Politics of Islamic Democracy

The problem of democratisation in the Arab Middle East has recently been a topic of great debate. Theories on the compatibility of Islam with democracy have been put forward, from within the Arab world and outside it, with accomodationist and rejectionist views available in both spheres. The rise of political Islam (or 'Islamism') since the late seventies has complicated the picture significantly, with new organisations calling for greater fidelity to Islamic principles on the part of the ruling regimes, with some suggesting that the divine revelation in itself provides sufficient guidance for even a modern Muslim polity. Such claims raise a challenge to the conventional wisdom that has long prevailed in Western countries, and has since spread to many others, which is that religion ought to be excluded from politics, for the good of both. As the title suggests, the big question that the present work seeks to address is whether liberal democracy can live without secularism.