Thursday, April 26, 2007

Hopes for Democracy Fade in Saudi

Democracy and Islam are mutually exclusive. While some have tried to justify the combination of the two ideologies I think it is, in the long term impossible.

Islam brings together all power and sovereignty and is unable to understand or implement the division of power that comes with democratic government. To divide power among groups or individuals (democracy), or to even attempt to separate in any genuine or significant way the religious from the civil is to divide power. And to divide power is to divide God.

Note how this differs from the Trinitarian understanding of Christianity, and the example of Jesus who in fact confers great power upon his Apostles: "What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven..." Yet this power clearly does not extend to any form of explicit governance beyond the Kingdom of God.

Most significantly, to divide power is to violate the example of Muhammad who accumulated for himself in a radical way every possible spehere of influence and exercise of power without any qualification whatsoever. In the name of God, of course.

Here is the link at IHT.

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