Part 1 Constitutionalism and Islam: Conceptual Issues, 1.1 Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: A Contemporary Perspective of Islamic Law

This chapter begins with a brief characterization of Islamic constitutional law and its underdeveloped status as compared with other branches of Islamic law. It then highlights salient differences between the Islamic and Western approaches to constitutional law and briefly discusses Islam and secularism. The next section provides a general characterization of the Islamic system of rule under four sub-headings. The first of these defines government in Islam as a trust (amānah); the second describes it as a limited and thus non-totalitarian government; the third addresses the Islamic system of rule as a qualified democracy; and the last characterizes it as a civilian not a theocratic system of government. The final section summarizes the main results of the preceding analysis and offers some tentative conclusions on the relationship between Islamic government and democratic constitutionalism.