262 No god but God
Protestant—moral framework. As recognized nearly two hundred
years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville, religion is the foundation of Amer-
ica’s political system. It not only reflects American social values, it very
often dictates them. One need only regard the language with which
political issues like abortion rights and gay marriage are debated
in Congress to recognize that religion is to this day an integral part
of the American national identity and patently the moral foundation
for its Constitution, its laws, and its national customs. Despite what
schoolchildren read in their history books, the reality is that the sepa-
ration of “Church and State” is not so much the foundation of Ameri-
can government as it is the result of a two-hundred-fifty-year
secularization process based not upon secularism, but upon pluralism.
It is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy. A demo-
cratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework
as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy. The State
of Israel is founded upon an exclusivist Jewish moral framework that
recognizes all the world’s Jews—regardless of their nationality—as
citizens of the state. England continues to maintain a national church
whose religious head is also the country’s sovereign. India was, until
recently, governed by partisans of an élitist theology of Hindu Awak-
ening (Hindutva) bent on applying their implausible but enormously
successful vision of “true Hinduism” to the state. And yet, like the
United States, these countries are all considered democracies, not
because they are secular but because they are, at least in theory, dedi-
cated to pluralism.
Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism. Mu-
hammad’s recognition of Jews and Christians as protected peoples
(dhimmi), his belief in a common divine text from which all revealed
scriptures are derived (the Umm al-Kitab), and his dream of establish-
ing a single, united Ummah encompassing all three faiths of Abraham
were startlingly revolutionary ideas in an era in which religion literally
created borders between peoples. And despite the ways in which it has
been interpreted by militants and fundamentalists who refuse to rec-
ognize its historical and cultural context, there are few scriptures in
the great religions of the world that can match the reverence with
which the Quran speaks of other religious traditions.
It is true that the Quran does not hold the same respect for poly-