Pluralism, Consensus, Human Rights, and Civil Disobedience in Islam: An Early Model of Democratic Culture
[Thesis]
Robert Bruce Brown
Laursen, Chris
University of California, Riverside
2014
236
Committee members: Leebaw, Bronowyn; Medearis, John
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-08701-7
Ph.D.
Political Science
University of California, Riverside
2014
This thesis will attempt to demonstrate that Islamic political thought developed democratic features and embraced concepts of universal human rights long before these features were evident in the west. By surveying Islamic religious, philosophical, and juridical records, it will attempt to determine whether the single over-arching theme of religious exclusivism has remained constant in Islamic literature (fundamentally alienating east from west), or whether concepts have been debated, modified, and incorporated in a dynamic way that reveals Islam as an evolutionary concept, rather than a rigid set of religious precepts, that is capable of producing a political process predicated on pluralism, consensus, respect for human rights, and toleration of civil disobedience. Samuel Huntington may be entirely correct that liberal democracy as it is understood in the west will never be derived from an Islamic ideology. However, we shall ask if Islam could provide a conceptual framework from which a non-western liberal democratic theory (one that retains the unique features of Islamic ideology) may be constructed, given time?
Religion; Philosophy
Philosophy, religion and theology;Democracy;Islam;Middle east