ABSTRACT
Having outlined in the previous chapter some of the fundamental elements in Islamic constitutional theory and its similarity to democracy, the objective in this chapter is to investigate the Islamic notion of democratic participation in the medieval and modern periods. This investigation, first, focuses on the wellspring of Islam under the leadership of the Prophet and his successors to explore their traditional principles, and, second, examines the manner in which those traditions of political principles were later reformulated by modern reformists and then by liberal intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter outlines the intellectual history of reformist Islam and the historical roots of contemporary attempts to promote democratic and human values from within Islam itself. The congruency of Islam and these critical human values is made clear through a rigorous examination of the history of ideas.
