In this article, we try to overcome the sterile debate that has prevailed for decades about the relationship between Islam and democracy, the relationship between religion and the state, as well as Islam and modernity. All these problems have governed Arab and Western thinking alike in looking at the religious phenomenon in our Arab region. This approach has made Islam and Muslims, as well as Arabs and Islamists, an exception without religions, nations, peoples and groups, and with it cultural inevitability and the clash of civilizations, which in turn will feed in the future the clash of identities.
According to this perspective, democracy cannot be localized in the Muslim world because there is a counterculture to it, ignoring the fact that cultures change and change, and according to this perspective, the discussion also witnesses the omission of other structural factors such as the evolution of state structures and the relationship between the political economy of a state and its position in the global capitalist market and the nature of the political system and the movements and social forces within it.
While many argue that the separation of church and state is an essential element of democracy, others assume that religion is an essential element of the moral foundations of democracy.
We need to renew the methods of consideration by reasking questions again and transcending the questions of those who preceded us, and the starting point is a comparative realist rather than a cultural and intellectual consideration, while integrating historical development into lived reality. If we must invoke the cultural and intellectual – which is inevitably coming – it is through the issues raised by reality and the practices we draw from history.
Few countries separate religion and state, so the relationship between religion and state as well as society is complex and not fully understood and varies according to inherited religious traditions and historical development, and even varies within the same religious tradition from one historical era to another and between different geographical regions.
The Islamic tradition in Asia differs from that of the Arab region, and within the Arab region, traditions vary according to the nature of each country. Moreover, the perspective through which one sees this relationship influences one's conclusions regarding its nature: whoever adopts the secular system sees this relationship as problematic, and whoever adopts the link between the two sees it as natural. This complexity can only be understood by the Greek oracle legend of Delphi, who was once asked: Who was the smartest person in the world? His answer was "Socrates," and when Socrates heard about this, he was confused at first because he felt he knew nothing.
On reflection, Socrates concluded that Oracle had been declared by the smartest person in the world because even though he knew nothing, at least he knew that he knew nothing.
In our heritage, the world is still a scientist who said I do not know, and if he said I know, he was ignorant. The rest of the world has always thought they know something, but their supposed knowledge has always been incorrect, inaccurate, or needs to be reconsidered.
Do democracies separate religion and state?
While many argue that the separation of church and state is an essential element of democracy, others assume that religion is an essential element of the moral foundations of democracy. A groundbreaking study examines this debate using comparative data from 156 countries that monitor the relationship between religion and state and democracy. Overall, the results show that the vast majority of democracies do not have a separation of church and state, but democracies tend to have a moderate degree of government involvement in religious regulation, which is lower than non-democratic regimes that have a high level of regulation and interference in this area.
Most democracies do not have this segregation, but there is an upper limit to the amount of their involvement in regulating religious affairs, and this does not seem to apply to non-democratic regimes that have much higher involvement in regulating it. All this suggests that the correct question regarding religion and democracy is not a question of the separation of church and state, but rather a question of the amount, types and forms of organization of the religious sphere that democracies can tolerate.
According to the Pew Center's leading polling institute, the average global level of government restrictions on religion — laws, policies, and actions taken by officials that encroach on religious beliefs and practices — has continued to rise, reaching an all-time high since the center began tracking these trends in 2007 for more than a decade.
In 2007, the first year of the study, the global median of the Government Restrictions Index (a 10-point scale based on 20 indicators) was 1.8. After some fluctuations in the early years, the average score has risen steadily since 2011 and now stands at 2.9 for 2018. As of 2018, most of the 56 countries with high or very high levels of government debt restrictions were found in Asia and the Pacific (25 or half of all countries in that region) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with 18 of these countries, or 90% of all countries in the region.
Of the five regions examined by the study, the Middle East and North Africa continued to have the highest average level of government restrictions, in 2018 it stood at 6.2 out of 10, yet the Asia-Pacific region saw the largest increase in average government restrictions scores, rising from 3.8 in 2017 to 4.4 in 2018, partly due to more governments in the region using force against religious groups, including property damage, detention, displacement and assault. and murder.
While the Asia-Pacific region recorded the largest increases in its Government Restrictions Index scores, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region still has the highest average level of government restrictions, scoring 6.2 points on the index, up from 6.0 in 2017, more than double the global average (2.9), and at its highest point since the post-Arab Spring period in 2012.
As in Asia, the rise in the MENA Religious Intervention Index was partly due to more governments using force against religious groups. All but one country in the region reported the government's use of force in relation to debt in 2018 although many were at the lowest level (between one and nine incidents).
Is there a relationship between the increased interference of the Arab state in regulating religious affairs and the escalation of counter-revolution in the region after the Arab Spring?
Is there a link between different models of government and levels of restrictions on religion, in other words if restrictions on religion tend to be more or less common in countries with full or partial democracies than in those with authoritarian regimes?
While there are many exceptions to this pattern, such as the United States, authoritarian regimes are more common among countries with severe government restrictions on religion, with nearly two-thirds (65%) classified as authoritarian, and at the same time among countries with low government restrictions on religion, only 7% are authoritarian.
Religious between co-optation and oppression
The organization of the religious sphere can be understood as an attempt by the regime to distinguish between state responsibilities and religious actors, and the regime's need to keep religious actors under control either by co-opting or oppressing them. Research on comparative authoritarianism suggests that religious co-optation and oppression should not be studied in isolation. Following this logic, positive support and negative religious-related restrictions in authoritarian states must be jointly examined. Istiqlām can be understood as a way for the regime to compensate for its fragility vis-à-vis various pressure groups, and at other times expresses a crisis of legitimacy, that is, the extent to which citizens are satisfied with its policies or at least contested by them.
Co-optation, oppression, and legitimacy can be understood as the "three pillars" of the stability of an authoritarian regime, and co-optation is often understood as the use of some kind of privilege by the regime to win over strategically important groups and individuals in society. The purpose is on the one hand to broaden the base of support for the regime and, on the other, to link selected groups to the regime, so that they have a vested interest in its survival.
It is said here that although religious groups are concerned with symbols, discourse, and rituals, their main concern is to get the dictator to introduce (or uphold laws and regulations that already exist), which govern people according to the principles set forth in religious education, and then reverence may extend to all aspects of society.
Here is a noteworthy observation that regimes and political Islam groups, despite their conflict, share a vision of religion based on authority in applying it and implementing its teachings on the ground. Repression can be understood as "governmental or private action aimed at preventing, controlling, or restricting non-institutional collective action. We expect authoritarian leaders who wish to prevent, control, or restrict collective action to place negative restrictions on both political activities and collective action resources for religious groups and institutions.
Suppression of moral resources could, for example, consist of controlling the content of religious sermons, religious material, and religious discourse; the regime may use propaganda and disinformation to discredit the moral authority of religious groups. As for the suppression of human resources, the regime may, for example, declare membership in religious organizations illegal, or apply the suppression of bodily integrity rights to individuals who are (active) members of a religious group.
Leaders are important to social movements; they inspire commitment, mobilize resources, create and recognize opportunities, create strategies, frame demands, and influence outcomes. As a result, authoritarian regimes have a strong motivation to exercise control over the leadership of religious institutions. Government control over clerical nominations is a powerful tool for the regime to ensure that only pro-regime individuals hold positions at the top of the religious hierarchy.
By suppressing material resources, the regime may limit religious groups and institutions' access to material resources through tools such as exorbitant taxes, restrictions on voluntary contributions to religious organizations, and regulation of foreign money flows. In extreme cases, the regime may confiscate or nationalize the property of religious groups.
Indeed, although the dictator hopes that the chosen group will have an entrenched interest in the survival of the regime, there is always a risk that the chosen group or institutions will at some point turn from friend to foe. To prevent this from happening, it is reasonable to assume that even selected groups need to be controlled by at least some repression or stoke competition between them as is being done between Dar al-Ifta and al-Azhar in Egypt.
If a dictator decides to use repression primarily as a tool to control religious groups and institutions, it can be assumed that the dictator aims to prevent, control, and restrict the behavior of religious groups and institutions on all fronts. If a dictator decides to use both co-optation and repression, he needs to strike the right balance between the two.
For example, as part of the co-optation process, the dictator may have granted co-opted groups some rights, such as the right to assemble at religious events. We therefore expect qualitative differences in repression depending on whether repressed religious groups have been contained. Thus, arguably there is no easy answer as to whether religiosity promotes or hinders a commitment to democracy.
Some views have pointed to religiosity as a source of anti-democratic tendencies, yet recent empirical evidence is less conclusive, suggesting that the impact of religiosity on democratic commitment can be positive, negative, or nullified.