Slouching Toward Medina 265tem would rest. A government of the people, by the people, and for
the people can be established or demolished solely through the will of
the people. After all, it is human beings who create laws, not God.
Even laws based on divine scripture require human interpretation in
order to be applied in the world. In any case, sovereignty necessitates
the ability not just to make laws, but to enforce them. Save for the
occasional plague, this is a power God rarely chooses to wield on
earth.
Those who argue that a state cannot be considered Islamic unless
sovereignty rests in the hands of God are in effect arguing that sover-
eignty should rest in the hands of the clergy. Because religion is, by
definition, interpretation, sovereignty in a religious state would
belong to those with the power to interpret religion. Yet for this very
reason an Islamic democracy cannot be a religious state. Otherwise it
would be an oligarchy, not a democracy.
From the time of the Prophet to the Rightly Guided Caliphs to
the great empires and sultanates of the Muslim world, there has never
been a successful attempt to establish a monolithic interpretation of
the meaning and significance of Islamic beliefs and practices. Indeed,
until the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, no Islamic polity in
the history of the world had ever been ruled by one individual’s read-
ing of scripture. Therefore, any notion of the Valayat-e Faqih, or
“guardianship of the Jurist,” in an Islamic democracy must remain
solely that: guardianship. Not control.
This does not mean the religious authorities would have no influ-
ence on the state. Khomeini may have had a point when he asserted
that those who spend their lives pursuing religion are the most quali-
fied to interpret it. However, as with the Pope’s role in Rome, such
influence can be only moral, not political. The function of the clergy
in an Islamic democracy is not to rule, but to preserve and, more
important, to reflect the morality of the state. Again, because it is not
religion, but the interpretation of religion that arbitrates morality,
such interpretation must always be in accord with the consensus of the
community.
Ultimately, an Islamic democracy must be concerned not with
reconciling popular and divine sovereignty, but with reconciling
“people’s satisfaction with God’s approval,” to quote Abdolkarim