| In this thesis I address the topic 'Islam and democracy.' I argue that rather than asking whether Islam and democracy are compatible, Western theorists should be seeking out how Muslims practice democracy. The ultimate aim of this thesis is to present a groundwork for meaningful and inclusive cross-cultural democratic dialogue to use as a basis for a global discourse on democracy. My main argument is that the 'Islam and the West' paradigm has occluded dialogue by miring the topic 'Islam and democracy' in debate over whether the two are compatible. Accordingly, the contents of this work are dedicated to (1) deconstructing the 'Islam and the West' paradigm and demonstrating its inadequacy as a viable approach to the topic 'Islam and democracy,' and (2) presenting arguments for, and exploring sites of, "Muslim democracy" and "post-Islamism" as starting points for cross-cultural dialogue between Muslim and Western societies and theorists. |
