Muslim Cultural Entrepreneurs and the Democracy Debate

Although there are few points of consensus in modern social science, the incompatibility of Islam and democracy is a candidate for one of them. Many Western scholars, only a few of whom have any particular expertise in Islam or the Middle East operate from the implicit, if not explicit assumption that Muslims have one creed (Islam), and thereby one culture, and they collectively share a disdain for modernity and reject democracy as a formula of governance. According to Samuel Huntington, "Islam...has not been hospitable to democracy."3 Daniel Pipes claims Muslims are not inclined to engage in participatory politics: "[N]early all Muslim subjects kept away from politics and became actively engaged only when they had a chance to apply the law or battle non-Muslims."4 Bernard Lewis argues that Muslims ' "dominant political tradition has long been that of command and obedience, and far from weakening it, modern times have actually witnessed its intensification."5 Such representatives of what Yahya Sadowski calls the "New Orientalism " reflect the conventional wisdom of both the social sciences and policy-makers