A review of Islam and Democracy, by John L. Esposito and John O. Voll.
About the Author
Ibrahim Karawan is director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah, where he teaches international politics. From 1995 to 1997, he was a senior fellow and directing staff member at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. He is the author of The Islamist Impasse (1997).
This region’s five republics have just lived through a remarkable first decade of independence that raises questions about “preconditions”-based theories of democratization.
Liberal Islam remains marginal because it is politically suppressed; in truth, it represents the predominant political hopes of Muslims around the world.
