170 No god but God
The problem is that it is practically impossible to reconcile the
Traditionalist view of the Shariah with modern conceptions of
democracy and human rights. Any modern Islamic state has only
three alternatives for incorporating the Shariah into its legal systems.
It can accept the Shariah as a legitimate source of civil law, but choose
to ignore it in all but the most obvious family, divorce, or inheritance
cases, as Egypt and Pakistan do. It can fully apply the Shariah to the
state with no attempt either to modernize it or adapt it to contempo-
rary norms of law and society, as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under
the Taliban have done. Or it can attempt to fuse the traditional values
of the Shariah with modern principles of democracy and human rights
through a comprehensive reform methodology. Thus far, only one
Islamic state has seriously considered the latter option.
For more than twenty years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been
struggling to reconcile popular and divine sovereignty in an attempt
to construct a genuinely Islamic democracy dedicated to pluralism,
liberalism, and human rights. It has been a difficult, violent, and hith-
erto unsuccessful endeavor. But not since the Articles of Confedera-
tion set in motion the drafting of the American Constitution has a
more important political experiment been attempted.
Of course, Iran is a special case. The Iranian Islamic ideal is a
patently Shi‘ite one, and from their inception as a political movement
with the aim of restoring the Caliphate to the family of the Prophet to
their rise as a separate religious sect in Islam with its own distinct
beliefs and practices, the Shi‘ah have never been eager to identify
themselves with the majority Muslim community.