There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors. Today, a number of Muslim-majority countries are Islamic yet secular democracies.
Islam is the official state religion in Tunisia. According to the United States CIA, 99.1% of its adherents are Sunni Muslims. The constitution of Tunisia states that the country's “religion is Islam”, the government is the “guardian of religion”, and requires that the president be Muslim. The predominant madhhab in the country is the Maliki school. The Tunisian island of Djerba is home to a population of Ibadi Muslims.
India since its independence in 1947 has been a secular state. The secular values were enshrined in the constitution of India. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru is credited with the formation of secular values in the modern history of the country.
An Islamic state has a form of government based on sharia law. As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term dawlah islāmiyyah it refers to a modern notion associated with political Islam (Islamism). Notable examples of historical Islamic states include the state of Medina, established by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the Arab caliphate which continued under his successors and the Umayyads.
In Turkey, secularism or laicism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of Turkey's first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, democratic, secular state, aligned with Kemalism.
Islam and modernity is a topic of discussion in contemporary sociology of religion. The history of Islam chronicles different interpretations and approaches. Modernity is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon rather than a unified and coherent one. It has historically had different schools of thought moving in many directions.
Rached Ghannouchi, also spelled Rachid al-Ghannouchi or Rached el-Ghannouchi, is a Tunisian politician, the co-founder of the Ennahdha Party and serving as its intellectual leader. He was born Rashad Khriji.
Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.
The Code of Personal Status (CPS) is a series of progressive Tunisian laws aiming at the institution of equality between women and men in a number of areas. It was promulgated by beylical decree on August 13, 1956 and came into effect on January 1, 1957. This Code is one of the best known deeds of Habib Bourguiba, who was Prime Minister and later President.
The Ennahda Movement, also known as the Renaissance Party or simply known as Ennahda, is a self-defined Islamic democratic political party in Tunisia.
Beji Caid Essebsi was a Tunisian politician who served as the 6th president of Tunisia from 31 December 2014 until his death on 25 July 2019. Previously, he served as the minister of foreign affairs from 1981 to 1986 and as the prime minister from February 2011 to December 2011.
An election for a constituent assembly in Tunisia was announced on 3 March 2011 and held on 23 October 2011, following the Tunisian revolution. The Assembly had 217 members. It was the first free election held in Tunisia since the country's independence in 1956, as well as the first election in the Arab world held after the start of the Arab Spring.
Egypt's first experience of secularism started with the British Occupation (1882–1952), the atmosphere which allowed the protection of debate. In this environment pro-secularist intellectuals like Yaqub Sarruf, Faris Nimr, Nicola Haddad who sought political asylum from Ottoman Rule were able to publish their work. This debate had then become a burning issue with the work of Egyptian Shaykh Ali Abdel Raziq (1888–1966), “The most momentous document in the crucial intellectual and religious debate of modern Islamic history”.
Bourguibism refers to the policies of Habib Bourguiba, the first President of Tunisia, and his followers.
Secular liberalism is a form of liberalism in which secularist principles and values, and sometimes non-religious ethics, are especially emphasised. It supports the separation of religion and state. Moreover, secular liberals are usually advocates of liberal democracy and the open society as models for organising stable and peaceful societies.
A process of secularization in Syria occurred under the French mandate in the 1920s. Syria has been governed by the Arab nationalist Baath Party since 1963. The Baath regime combined Arab Socialism with elements of secular ideology and an authoritarian political system which also incorporated aspects of Islamic law, with different court systems operating for religious minorities. Non-Muslims are forbidden from the role of head of state.
A political crisis evolved in Tunisia following the assassination of leftist leader Mohamed Brahmi in late July 2013, during which the country's mainly secular opposition organized several protests against the ruling Troika alliance that was dominated by Rashid al-Ghannushi's Islamist Ennahda Movement. The events came as part of the aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution which ousted the country's longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, followed by a general election which saw Ennahda win a plurality alongside Moncef Marzouki's allied Congress for the Republic (CPR). The crisis gradually subsided when Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh resigned and a new constitution was adopted in January 2014.
The Free Destourian Party, until August 2016 known as the Destourian Movement, is a Tunisian political party founded by former members of Tunisia's pre-revolution ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally. In the 2014 presidential election, the Destourian Movement presented Abderrahim Zouari, Minister of Transport from 2004 to 2011, as candidate. The party is now lead by the lawyer and MP Abir Moussi. Since early 2020, the party is leading in all opinion polls for the next Tunisian general elections, and its leader Abir Moussi is always second just after incumbent president Kais Saied. On October 3, 2023, the president of the PDL, Abir Moussi, was arrested in a series of political arrests and crackdown on the opposition launched by president Kais Saied.
Post-Islamism is a neologism in political science, the definition and applicability of which is disputed. Asef Bayat and Olivier Roy are among the main architects of the idea.
Abir Moussi is a Tunisian lawyer and politician. She has been the president of the Free Destourian Party since 2016 and a member of Parliament since 2019. Abir Moussi is considered one of the most important and famous Tunisian politicians who defend the civil state and Bourguiba's approach. She is also known for her absolute rejection of political Islam movements and all forms of confusion between religion and politics. On October 3, 2023, Abir Moussi was arrested in front of the presidential palace of Carthage, in a series of political arrests and crackdown on the opposition launched by Tunisian president Kais Saied.
