Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004, 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.