Can Democracy be imposed in Muslim Countries?

By Alamgir Hussain

Those who argue that democracy and rule of law cannot be imposed by outside interventions are obviously wrong, as demonstrated by the interventions in Japan, Italy and Germany in post-WW II era. All indications from the more recent but unfinished interventions in the Balkan, in Liberia and Haiti also prove them wrong. However the critics are right when considering the intervention in Somalia in 1993 and more recent ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to understand this intriguing disparity in success of outside interventions in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, one must grasp the fundamental precepts of Islam, which is the common ideological denominator that binds them together. Islamic scholars over the centuries have divided the world into two domains.

The first being the Dar-al-Islam (house of peace), which constitute the domains dominated and ruled by the Muslims according to the Islamic laws. The other is the Dar al-Harb (house of war), which is dominated and ruled by the non-Muslims and Muslims must wage a ceaseless war (so it called 'house of war') against it in order to bring it into the domain of Dar al-Islam, thereby fulfilling the wishes of the almighty creator.