There is no authoritarian dictatorship in Islam

Submitted by Jared (United States), Apr 25, 2008 at 18:12

There is no single person who can dictate religious doctrine in Islam as there is in the Catholic Church.

As pointed out by Pipes in the original post, the supreme authority of Islam is the Koran as implemented by the religious/legal code of Shari'a. Shari'a may be interpreted differently by different persons. This gives rise to conflicting fatwas. Be that as it may be, all commentators and interpreters acknowledge the supremacy of the Koran and Shari'a. As Pipes stated, in order to get democratization, the hold of Shari'a must be broken.

Al-Munajid is against freedom of speech and religion because they would undermine Islam. Freedom of speech would open the Koran and Shari'a to debate. If they are debated, comparisons with other religions will be made and some Muslims will become apostates and choose other religions, as was done in a high visibility conversion two weeks ago in the UK.

This intolerable to Al-Munajid , and other clerics like him, because it suborns the denial of Islam as being inviolate and his states provide support for my position in a prior comment, In 6 centuries, maybe, that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".