Allama Iqbal's (b. 1877 d. 1938) and Fethullah Gulen's (b.1938) ideas about democracy in the Islamic context are very similar. Allama Iqbal had indeed made a proposal of spiritual democracy to the Umma in the "Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam" in his 6th lecture in 1930. We find that many Islamic scholars of today have accepted the idea of democracy & Islam being compatible. Iqbal indeed did not like the idea of importing the Western democratic system and transplanting it as such in the Islamic world because of its extreme secular stance. He still suggested in his writings that there was no alternative to democracy in the Muslim World. Iqbal observed that if the foundations of democracy were to rest upon spiritual and moral values, it would be the best political system for the world. He wrote in the "The New Era" July 28th, 1917 issue: that "democracy was born in Europe from economic renaissance that took place in most of its societies. But democracy in the Islamic context is not to be developed from the idea of economic advancement alone; it is also a spiritual principle that comes from the fact that every individual is a source of power whose potentialities are to be developed through virtue and character."
展开▼
