Obstacles to Democracy   in   the   Islamic   Tradition:  Some obstacles stand in the way of the Muslims' acceptance of democracy in the modern sense. The first obstacle is caused by the widespread apologetic approach to the tradition. A large number of educated Muslims see only the bright side of Islam and ignore the dark spots on the moon. The second obstacle is the fear of the social consequences of dissent from the majority position. There is no friendly dialogue between different groups within the Muslims themselves. Keeping one's views to oneself is supposed to be both prudence and courtesy to other Muslims or non-Muslims. One may occasionally open out before very intimate friends, but certainly not express his views in writing. This makes the orthogenetic growth of the tradition either impossible or extremely slow, as happened to Sir Syed’s religious reform movement. Even after a lapse of a century his ideas are supposed to be dangerous heresies which should be politely ignored rather than seriously discussed even at Aligarh itself.

Perhaps, even more serious than the fear of dissent is what the philosophical psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, calls the 'fear freedom’. The traditional Muslim develops a fear of independent thinking and suppresses one’s genuine attitudes, feelings and intellectual difficulties, as if their mere registration, at the conscious level, would amount to blasphemy or sin.  Any spontaneous disagreement from the generally received view is looked upon as spiritual perversion which needs a spiritual cure. This is why Muslims possessing high technical or professional degrees do not have the moral courage and spiritual creativity to enter into friendly dialogue with the Ulema and others. Without cultivating and freely expressing an integrated outlook on life religious faith turns into a mere badge lest one be accused of being disloyal to one’s group.15

Another obstacle to the growth of democratic attitudes is the lack of suitable popular literature on Islamic liberalism, humanism and the social sciences. Islamic literature continues to be almost solely produced by either traditional Muslim writers or by the Jamat-e- Islami. The Jamat disagrees with the traditional or conservative school of Islam as well as the liberal approach of Sir Syed, Abul Kalam Azad, et al. Another obstacle in the way of a wider acceptance of Islamic liberalism is the intellectual isolation of the Ulema and their almost total neglect of comparative religion, history, social sciences etc as well as the valuable work of western scholars on Islam and other religions. They do not realize that contemporary western scholarship, at its best, is no longer subject to the prejudices and foibles of Christian missionaries, apologists or imperialists, of the previous century, but that they are doing very creative and valuable research on Islamic Studies. Of course there are some rather misinformed and partisan Christian or other apologists, but their activities should not prevent enlightened Muslims from benefiting from the honest scholarly labors of numerous admiring and impartial western scholars of Islam.16  

6. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Islamic resurgence, provided it be on right lines, should be welcomed, not only by the Muslims, but all genuine humanists who look upon humanity as one large family. When, however, the protagonists of Islamic resurgence take to positions which directly or indirectly, erode the basic values of humanism, spiritual autonomy, free enquiry, equality of the sexes, human rights, tolerance, equality of opportunity etc., Islamic resurgence becomes objectionable not only to non-Muslims but liberal Muslims as well.

    Unfortunately, the champions of Islamic resurgence instead of engaging themselves in an impartial and constructive criticism of the human situation and a balanced evaluation of western thought and institutions, betake themselves to a negative debunking of modernity. This approach may well give them a sense of superiority to the 'decadent west’. But it definitely leads to clouded vision and blurred perceptions of the actual conditions prevailing in western society. Instead of acquiring an 'insider's insight' into the strength and weakness, the real achievements and limitations of western modernity, the hostile critics get only distorted pictures, half-truths, over-simplifications, and the like. In other words, they commit the fallacy of 'outsider's negative bias —precisely the same fallacy which they attribute to the western students of Islam.