Democracy and Islam are fully compatible and Muslims need not be secular to embrace democratic ideals and the system of governance based on it.

     Dr Pervaiz Nazir, a senior research fellow at the Centre for International Studies, University of Cambridge, said this during a lecture on ‘The Rise of Political Religion and its Implications for Democracy’ at the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) on Wednesday. A scholar of Pakistani origin, Dr Nazir said that western nations should improve their perception of Islam instead of enforcing western ideals on Muslim countries.

     He said the west developed its economy and governing system in a particular setting due to which the Muslim polity suffered. He urged the world to keep past differences in mind while handing down judgment on a democratic system, prevalent in the Islamic world. Dr Nazir also suggested that Muslims try to find a confluence of democratic principles and Islamic traditions. He also said that modernity, secularism and democracy could be incorporated into religion instead of casting religion aside to adopt them. He said that religion was a separate entity and should not be mixed with politics, but he agreed to the audience’s suggestion that Islam could not be separated from modern politics. Dr. Nazir insisted that rigidity was the bane of religion and Muslims should be flexible while approaching the West. He also criticised Muslims for aping the Western dress code and cultural icons and asked them to engage in deeper and more meaningful pursuits that the West had been offering for the development of the world.