Additional Notes: To quote the 20th century cleric, Sayyid Qutb, "It is Allah and not man who rules. Allah is the source of all authority, including legitimate political authority. Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value. Therefore, Allah's law, not man's, should govern the society." Islamic law is based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah, which are set and fixed. There is no need for addition or correction. Neither is there any room for the law of fallible man (particularly non-Muslims). Nor should it take the place of Allah's perfect law, which tells a man everything he needs to know about daily life (down to which hand he should "hold it in" while urinating). If Allah is not the authority then anything less is a secular dictatorship, including rule by the Muslim people. As an American-Muslim jurist complained in a recent fatwa, "democracy gives free reign to the authority of the Ummah, and puts no ceiling on it." Also, the law of one person, one vote is essential to democracy, but heretical to Islam. According to the Qur'an, the testimony of a woman is worth only half that of a man, and Jews and Christians are never to have equal standing with Muslims under the law (and certainly never in a position of authority over Muslims). Atheists are to be killed outright. Reform-minded Muslims prefer to ignore all of this and instead point to Qur'an (42:38), where the phrase "[Muslims] who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation" is used as evidence that Islam is compatible with democracy. Also recruited to this end is an oft-repeated hadith that has Muhammad saying, "My community will never agree on an error." On this is based the much ballyhooed concept of "ijma" or consensus among Muslims for determining matters of Islamic law. But ijma, has always been controversial and rarely practiced within Islam. Some interpret it to mean "consensus of the scholars" - having nothing to do with the opinion of the community at large. Even when its legitimacy is recognized, ijma is accepted only as a secondary (or tertiary) form of authority, behind the fiqh councils. Also, it bears pointing out that ijma and consultation are applicable only within the Muslim community (and probably limited to the "consensus" of males). American scholar Jamal Badawi (who is often billed as a 'moderate') says that it is the duty of Muslims to bring about Islamic rule: "The Qur’an is full of direct and indirect, implicit and many times explicit indications that show that the establishment of the Islamic order is a requirement on Muslims whenever possible." He also scoffs at secularism: “If a Muslim believes that there is any human being who has the right to make laws other than Allah then obviously this is total divergence from the path of Islam. Or any person who believes that secularism is superior to the law of Allah, he's violating the basic Quranic tenets" Muhammad ruled on Allah's authority and did not submit his decisions to the will of the people. Neither is there any tradition of democracy in the 1400 year history of Islam in the Middle East and Persia. If the entire world became Muslim overnight, it is highly doubtful that democracy would last, since it would be applicable only to the most mundane of matters not already decided by Islamic law. | 
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