From Its Earliest Days, Islam Respects Plurality

Jerusha Tanner Lamptey is an assistant professor of Islam and ministry at Union Theological Seminary.

Updated October 5, 2012, 8:30 AM

The Islamic tradition does not inherently commend any particular form of government. The diversity of governance and participation models in both contemporary Muslim-majority nations and in Islamic history attest to this. What the Islamic tradition does commend in the socio-political sphere is the practice and exemplification of certain values, including equality of all individuals, noncompulsion, respect for diversity and respect for the communal whole.

In Muhammad's vision, religious communities were explicitly granted rights to autonomy and self-determination.

A striking example of these central values is found in Islam’s earliest socio-political context, the city of Medina under the leadership of Muhammad. Muhammad came to Yathrib (later renamed Medina) to act as an arbitrator among various warring factions in the city. His leadership role and socio-political vision was subsequently outlined in the Mithaq al-Madinah, the Contract of Medina.

This contract placed all groups within the city into a mutual alliance in which they agreed to protect the city, to come to the aid of allies, and to embrace Muhammad as a political and military leader. Notably, this alliance was in no way contingent upon religious affiliation or homogeneity. There was no obligation to adhere to the religious rites practiced by Muhammad, and in fact, religious communities were explicitly granted rights to autonomy and self-determination.

The values in play in this one example — an example that is essential to Islamic self-understanding — demonstrate significant overlap with the democratic values of participation, freedom, human rights and pluralism. Therefore, when we probe the relationship between Islam and democracy, the central question is not whether Islam is or can be compatible with democracy. The Islamic tradition proffers more than enough fodder to validate democratic principles. Rather, the more pressing question is why democracy-compatible aspects of the richly diverse Islamic tradition are emphasized — or de-emphasized — in various contexts. In order to answer this question, we must probe the intersections of Islam, culture, colonization, socio-economics and education. This is a much more complex question, but it is the question we need to ask.