On Muslim Democracy Essays and Dialogues

by Ghannouchi, Rached; March, Andrew F.

• ISBN13: 9780197666876
• ISBN10: 0197666876
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-09-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Many Muslim intellectuals and political activists have begun to move beyond classical political Islam to embrace a more pluralistic, democratic order by developing the concept of "Muslim democracy." Perhaps the most prominent example is the Tunisian Ennahda Party, which declared itself to no longer be "Islamist" but a "Muslim Democratic" party in 2016. While there has been some scholarship on the phenomenon of "Muslim democracy," this book represents the first volume in English to offer a translation of primary source texts elaborating its ideological contours.

The head of the Ennahda Party, and an internationally prominent Muslim political thinker and intellectual, Rached Ghannouchi is known around the world as the preeminent theorist of a reconciliation between modern Islamic political thought and democratic theory. On Muslim Democracy gathers a number of Ghannouchi's most important essays, making them available in English for the first time. The book also includes a lengthy philosophical-theological dialogue between Ghannouchi and American political theorist Andrew March. In the dialogues, March and Ghannouchi discuss the influences on and evolution of Ghannouchi's thought, and the meaning of concepts like democracy, pluralism, justice, and law across Islamic and Western philosophical traditions.

This volume presents a well-rounded view into the influential work of Rached Ghannouchi, further supported by previously unpublished, illuminating conversations on critical topics in Muslim politics.

Author Biography

Rached Ghannouchi is one of the world's leading Islamic thinkers, who served as speaker of the Tunisian Parliament between 2019 and 2021. He has written dozens of books in Arabic, many of which have been translated into other languages, including Public Freedoms in the Islamic State, which has just been published in English.

Andrew F. March is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has also taught political theory and Islamic political thought at Harvard, Yale and NYU. He is the author of The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought and Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "From Islamic Democracy to Muslim Democracy: Rached Ghannouchi in Thought and Action" by Andrew F. March

Essays on Freedom, Democracy, and Constitutionalism (by Rached Ghannouchi)

Chapter 1: Basic Freedoms in Islam
Chapter 2: The Dialectic of Unity, Difference and Political Pluralism in Islam
Chapter 3: When Is Islam the Solution?
Chapter 4: Freedom First
Chapter 5: Between Sayyid Qutb and Malek Bennabi: Ten Points
Chapter 6: Islam and Citizenship
Chapter 7: The Problems of Contemporary Islamist Discourse
Chapter 8: Secularism and the Relation between Religion and the State from the Perspective of the Ennahda Party
Chapter 9: The Implications and Requirements of a Post-Revolutionary Constitution
Chapter 10: Human Rights in Islam

Philosophical-Theological Dialogues on Democracy, Pluralism, and Islam: Rached Ghannouchi and Andrew F. March

Biography and Formation
Democracy, Sovereignty, and Morality
The Universal Caliphate, Democracy, and the Meaning of the Shari'a
Freedom, Pluralism, and Toleration