Democratic Tyranny and the Islamic Paradigm

Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley (b. 1948) is renowned for translating a considerable number of classical works on Islam. The book under review is one of her recent works that examines the historical genesis and evolution of democracy. It spans over 100 pages and is broadly divided into two parts: ‘Western thought’ and ‘Islamic Paradigm’. In chapter one, ‘Democratic Tyranny’ (pp. 1–2), Bewley’s main argument is that the modern ‘democratic’ world, the so-called ‘civilized’ world, lives under the delusion that the liberal political institutions of the West are the ‘only natural and just form of governance.’ She argues that ‘the democracy bandied about today has nothing to do with ancient Athenians’ – the latter would never have called ‘modern democracy’ democracy, instead they would term it ‘elective oligarchy’. Moreover, modern democracy is not based on ‘spiritual equality derived from a theoretical concept of Christian brotherhood.’ The author labours to prove that ‘modern democracy’ is ‘the child of liberal individualism, which in turn rose from the reins of the universal Church after Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII succeeded in demolishing it’ (p. 1).